The spine journal : official journal of the North American Spine Society
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Supervised exercise, spinal manipulation, and home exercise for chronic low back pain: a randomized clinical trial.
Several conservative therapies have been shown to be beneficial in the treatment of chronic low back pain (CLBP), including different forms of exercise and spinal manipulative therapy (SMT). The efficacy of less time-consuming and less costly self-care interventions, for example, home exercise, remains inconclusive in CLBP populations. ⋯ For CLBP, supervised exercise was significantly better than chiropractic spinal manipulation and home exercise in terms of satisfaction with treatment and trunk muscle endurance and strength. Although the short- and long-term differences between groups in patient-rated pain, disability, improvement, general health status, and medication use consistently favored the supervised exercise group, the differences were relatively small and not statistically significant for these individual outcomes.
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Posterior lumbar interbody fusion (PLIF) using harvested local bone inserted into a polyetheretherketone (PEEK) cage is a commonly used procedure, but the accurate fusion rate of a cage, cage to bone contact area ratio, and the changes in fusion rate with time after surgery are unknown. ⋯ The fusion rate of the PEEK cage used in PLIF measured at 12 months was higher than that measured at 6 months. Therefore, an assessment on the complete fusion of local bone at 12 months after surgery is more accurate.
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Treatment guidelines suggest that most acute low back pain (LBP) episodes substantially improve within a few weeks and that immediate use of imaging and aggressive therapies should be avoided. ⋯ Contrary to clinical guidelines, many patients with LBP start incurring significant resource use and associated expenses soon after the index diagnosis. Achieving guideline-concordant care will require substantial changes in LBP practice patterns.