PainRelief.com Interview with: Rayane Haddadj, PhD Candidate Department of Public Health and Nursing Norwegian University of Science and Technology
PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Low back pain is the leading cause of disability worldwide and accounts for the highest healthcare spending in the Unites States.
Given its widespread impact, identifying modifiable risk factors – those that can be addressed through public health policy and targeted interventions – is therefore of great importance for reducing the burden of this condition.
PainRelief.com Interview with: Christopher Williams PhD University Centre for Rural Health School of Health Sciences University of Sydney, Lismore Research and Knowledge Translation Directorate Mid North Coast Local Health District, Port Macquarie, New South Wales, Australia
PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Other research has linked unhealthy lifestyle habits to low back pain (such as being inactive, overweight, smoking and consuming a poor diet, or too much to low back pain). However, until our study we didn’t know if changing these lifestyle habits led to improvements in a person’s back pain disability.
PainRelief.com: What are the main findings?
Response: Our clinical trial found that focusing care on lifestyle had a slightly bigger impact on back pain related disability, weight, and quality of life compared to the current recommended physiotherapy treatment for back pain (advice to stay active and exercise). The results show that helping people understand how lifestyle habits contribute to back pain and supporting them to make changes to these habits is better than the current recommended care.
PainRelief.com: What should readers take away from your report?
Response: Managing back pain is about more than the (bio)mechanics of what is going on in your spine. There are lots of things that may affect how your back feels. Lifestyle factors – activity, nutrition, weight, smoking or alcohol use, and sleep – are some of those things. Any person dealing with back pain should expect to get some help to figure out how their lifestyle habits can improve their back pain, as part of a comprehensive back pain management plan.
PainRelief.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this study?
Response: There are many ways to support lifestyle changes related to back pain. We aren’t quite sure which are the best for different people, and the best way to support people with pain make such changes. For example, while digital or virtual ways of accessing care seem promising, we aren’t sure if these are more or less effective/cost effectives as traditional ‘in-person’ models of care.
Disclosures: The study was supported by funding the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia.
Citation: Mudd E, Davidson SRE, Kamper SJ, et al. Healthy Lifestyle Care vs Guideline-Based Care for Low Back Pain: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Netw Open. 2025;8(1):e2453807. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.53807
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.
PainRelief.com Interview with: Prof. Dr. Frank Huygen Erasmus Medical Center Rotterdam, the Netherlands
PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is a widely accepted therapy for people who have chronic pain that has been difficult to treat with conventional medical management (CMM) such as analgesics, physical therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy. Yet despite its clinical success, there is still debate about aspects of SCS therapy.
This systemic review and network meta-analysis aimed to improve upon prior evidence reviews by including more up to date randomized clinical trial data and using more advanced analytical methods. We evaluated the efficacy associated with SCS, including modern RCTs that compared novel forms of SCS compared to traditional SCS, or compared with CMM.
PainRelief.com Interview with: Jooa Norha, MSc (Health Sciences), PT Doctoral researcher Turku PET Centre University of Turku, Finland
PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: The previous evidence linking sedentary behavior (or sitting to simplify) and back pain is surprisingly scarce. Therefore, we wanted to investigate whether reducing sitting could help with back pain among adults who sit for major parts of the day. And indeed, we did find that reducing sitting for about 40 min/day for six months kept back pain from worsening.
PainRelief.com Interview with: Natasha C Pocovi Department of Health Sciences Macquarie University, Sydney NSW, Australia
PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Approximately 620 million people globally, reported suffering low back pain in 2020. While it’s not considered a life-threatening disease, we can see the very serious impacts it can have on people’s lifestyle, ability to work, and overall quality of life. While much work is being done to treat low back pain, ‘prevention’ is mostly unchartered territory. This is particularly important given the high rates of recurrent low back pain, where 7 in 10 people who recover from an episode of low back pain will have a new episode in the next 12 months.
A small number of studies have examined exercise to prevent the recurrence of low back pain. These have primarily focused on group-based, complex exercises focusing on a combination of strengthening and improving the endurance and flexibility of the spine. Some of these were delivered over several supervised sessions, some as many as 20 x 1-hour sessions. This becomes less feasible for patients to engage in.
PainRelief.com Interview with: Patience Moyo, Ph.D Assistant Professor of Health Services, Policy and Practice Center for Gerontology and Healthcare Research Department of Health Services, Policy, and Practice Brown University School of Public Health
PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Clinical practice guidelines recommend nonpharmacologic treatments as first-line therapies for managing chronic pain. However, little is known about the use of guideline-recommended pain therapies and whether use varies in demographic subgroups. Individuals with co-occurring chronic pain and opioid use disorder deserve particular consideration because of their increased risk of harm from opioids and other pharmacologic therapies combined with their susceptibility to social and structural barriers to accessing health care.
We sought to understand whether the well-established racial and ethnic inequities in pain management extend to individuals with opioid use disorder and to nonpharmacologic pain treatments, specifically physical therapy and chiropractic care.
PainRelief.com Interview with: Peter Kent Adjunct Associate Professor Curtin School of Allied Health Curtin University, Perth WA, Australia
PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Although there had been clinical trials of Cognitive Functional Therapy (CFT) with promising results, there had not been a fully powered trial comparing CFT with usual care, nor any trials in Australia. Previous trials had included a maximum of 3 CFT clinicians, whereas the RESTORE trial included the training of 18 physiotherapists to CFT competency who had minimal prior exposure to CFT. No previous CFT trial had included an evaluation of 6161615g8cost effectiveness of CFT, nor examined whether the use of wearable motion sensor biofeedback might enhance the effect of CFT.
PainRelief.com Interview with: Chang Liu Researcher, PHD Student University of Sydney
PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: Sciatica is a common condition caused by lumbar nerve root compression and/or inflammation, usually due to a herniated disc. Non-surgical treatments, such as exercise, are recommended as the first step, with pharmacological and interventional options available if needed.
Surgery, specifically discectomy, is a common treatment for sciatica but evidence supporting its effectiveness is uncertain.
PainRelief.com Interview with: Prof. Dr. Alberto De Vitta Department of Physical Therapy Centro Universitário das Faculdades Integradas de Ourinhos Água do Cateto, Ourinhos Brazil
PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: This research is part of a line of research that addresses the intersectoriality between education and health, in which it seeks to study the various risk factors of the educational environment that can influence the health of schoolchildren.
PainRelief.com: What are the main findings?
Response: In this study the main results were: There is high prevalence and incidence of Thoracic Spine Pain (TSP) in high school students and the TSP is associated with the female sex, mental health problems, and body posture while using cell phones, tablets, and PCs as well as with the duration of use of cell phone and tablet.
Dr Michael Wewege, PhD Research Fellow – Neuroscience Research Australia
Prof. McAuley
Prof James McAuley, PhD Director – Centre for Pain IMPACT, Neuroscience Research Australia, Professor – School of Health Sciences, University of New South Wales Sydney, Australia
PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study?
Response: We conducted this study because medicines are the most common treatment for adults with acute non-specific low back pain. One of the most important questions is “What is the best medicine to use?” We wanted to compare the medicines with each other because this is the information patients and physicians want to know, but previous research has focused on only comparing medicines to placebo. Physicians are deciding between these medicines based on their clinical expertise; we hoped to support their decision making with a rigorous piece of research.
The information on PainRelief.com is provided for educational purposes only, and is in no way intended to diagnose, endorese, 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. None of the content on PainRelief.com is warranted by the editors or owners of PainRelief.com or Eminent Domains Inc.
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