PainRelief.com: What are the main findings?
Response: The WalkBack trial is the first trial to explore how a simple, low-cost and accessible exercise strategy such as walking, can prevent the recurrence of low back pain, when coupled with education. This simple, low-cost, and accessible intervention was able to reduce recurrences of low back pain that impacted people’s daily activity by 28% and also reduced recurrences that required care-seeking by 43% compared to a no-intervention control.
PainRelief.com: What should readers take away from your report?
Response: Many interventions for back pain are complex and delivered by clinicians to patients. Our study focused on empowering patients to take control of their own condition with a simple, accessible approach. Self-management is widely recommended in back pain guidelines but rarely occurs in clinical practice. We hope these findings prompt patients to take a more pro-active approach to self-managing their recurrent low back pain.
PainRelief.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this study?
1. While we assessed ‘walking and education’ in this trial, there is the possibility that similar effects might be seen by other exercise strategies – the need for more accessible, low-cost, simple and effective interventions merits exploration.
2. Ideally, this would be rolled into clinical practice and provided following the treatment of an acute episode of low back pain. How we implement this into clinical practice, is an important next step in this research translation.
3. The intervention was facilitated by physiotherapists across 6 consultations over a 6-month period. Whether the same treatment effect could be achieved with fewer sessions, or when delivered by another trained health or fitness professional – is yet to be determined.
PainRelief.com: Is there anything else you would like to add? Any disclosures?
1. There is a widespread belief that protecting the back is important and movement can cause harm. We now understand this to simply not be true. Instead, keeping sensibly active within the limits of pain and trying to keep to your usual routine as best possible will result in a quicker recovery.
2. The study started pre-COVID, and we had originally planned for the 6 sessions provided to the intervention group to be a combination of face-to-face consults and phone check-ins. This meant that the intervention could only be provided to participants who lived close to or were willing to travel to the ~20 clinicians we trained for the trial.
When the lockdowns occurred, we worked with the clinicians to see if the program could be effectively delivered by telehealth alone (a combination of video and phone calls). This worked really well, and the physiotherapists really enjoyed delivering the program in this way. This meant we could recruit across Australia, delivering the WalkBack intervention to people who lived in some quite rural locations. As a result, this intervention should be available to many people around the world.
RE DISCLOSURES: The project was funded by a National Health and Medical Research Council grant.
Citation: Pocovi NC, Lin CC, French SD, Graham PL, van Dongen JM, Latimer J, Merom D, Tiedemann A, Maher CG, Clavisi O, Tong SYK, Hancock MJ. Effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of an individualised, progressive walking and education intervention for the prevention of low back pain recurrence in Australia (WalkBack): a randomised controlled trial. Lancet. 2024 Jun 19:S0140-6736(24)00755-4. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(24)00755-4. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 38908392.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38908392
The information on PainRelief.com is provided for educational purposes only, and is in no way intended to diagnose, cure, or treat any medical or other condition. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health and ask your doctor any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. In addition to all other limitations and disclaimers in this agreement, service provider and its third party providers disclaim any liability or loss in connection with the content provided on this website.
Last Updated on July 5, 2024 by PainRelief.com