• Adesola O Ojoawo, Mathew O Olaogun, Sunday A Odejide, and Abiodun A Badru.
• Department of Medical Rehabilitation, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Nigeria. aoojoawo@yahoo.com
• Tanzan J Health Res. 2013 Jan 1;15(1):58-63.

AbstractPrevalence of low back pain (LBP) among Africans is rising. Many adults in any given year experience low back pain at one time or the other, this should be of concern. It is then imperative to research into how to reduce the disability caused by LBP. The objective of this study was to assess the effect of Vertical Oscillatory Pressure (VOP) on the pain and disability of patients with mechanical low back pain. A total of 84 patients (34 males and 50 females) diagnosed with mechanical low back pain were purposely selected to participate in the study after obtaining their consent. The pain intensity of all the patients was assessed individually using Present Pain Intensity (PPI) on the first day of their appointment in addition to other examinations. Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire (RMDQ) was also administered to all patients individually on the first day of report to the clinic. This is pre test record. VOP was then administered to each patient twice in a week for 6 weeks making 12 treatment sessions. Pain intensity and disability were assessed regularly every week of appointment for the 6-week period using PPI and RMDQ (post-test) by another physiotherapist in order to avoid bias. The difference between the first week score of RMDQ and the 6th week score was calculated and the percentage of improvement was determined. Dependent t-test was used to compare the pre and post test values and an alpha level of 0.05 was set as level of significance. An independent t-test was used to analyse the difference between male and female values. Result revealed that the maximum complaint of patients using RMDQ showed a significant disability for males but not for females, and the rate of improvement of male was higher than that of females. There were significant differences (P<.00 1) between the pre-test and post test measurements of PPI and RMDQ, respectively. The rate of improvement in males was significantly higher than that of females. The study concluded that VOP can be useful in ameliorating pain and disability of patients with low back pain.

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