Move Your Back Pain Away

The study found that walking led to 43% fewer trips to see health care professionals, she said. 

“We actually changed people’s attitudes towards exercise and their beliefs around pain with guidance from the physical therapist,” she said.

Back Pain a Universal Problem

“The study highlighted that the majority of time, recurrent back pain is due to an initial injury,” said Dr. Gerald Lane, a doctor of chiropractic in Newark, NJ. “What that does at the muscular level is that it actually changes the composition of the muscles that provide stability to the spine, especially the low back.”

Targeted exercise like walking helps prevent those muscles from becoming weaker over time, said Lane, who’s also a certified medical examiner for the FMCSA.

Back pain can come from a lot of different sources, said Alice Chen, MD, a Stamford, CT-based physiatrist specializing in non-operative back pain. Chen is also affiliated with the Hospital For Special Surgery In New York City. “It can be related to muscle spasm, joint irritations in the back, ligaments, irritation of the back.” 

Twenty-five percent of all back pain has no specific origin, she said.

But research has shown that 40% of these cases come from lifestyle factors – prolonged sitting and overweight/obesity. Still, many interventions and treatments – imaging, prescribed bed rest, steroid shots, pain pills – yield varying outcomes. What’s more, research has shown that when they’re not used correctly, these strategies can delay recovery and, in some cases, increase the risk of long-term disability.

Movement is Key

Not only did the Australian study reinforce the value of movement, but it also raised the importance of fear avoidance, meaning avoiding activity and exercise for fear of the pain. 

“Patients are often fearful of their symptoms, that they’ll last forever, that they should not move because it will further damage their musculoskeletal structures,” said Ellen McGough, PhD, a physical therapist and chair and program director of the Physical Therapy Department at the University of Rhode Island in Kingston. “But study after study has found that sedentary behavior is worse for low back pain; any type of movement is better,” she explained.

Pocovi said she had done focus groups with a smaller group of active people who were ultimately not included in the study. They had become “disengaged with physical activity because previous episodes had meant or led to (in their minds) a flare-up of low back pain,” she said. 

This is where physical therapy or chiropractic physiotherapy can be invaluable. In the trial, “the chiropractor was more like a health coach; they provided pain education, reassuring patients that they would not cause more harm by partaking in a walking program, and also giving people self-confidence to self-manage.”