Comparison of effectiveness levels of manual therapy and home exercise program in women with chronic low back pain

Aim: Lumbago (Low Back Pain) is one of the health problems which is quite common in developing countries and leads to a number of worldly, spiritual and psychological distresses. This study aims to find out and compare the levels of effectiveness of manual therapy and home-based exercise programs on female patients diagnosed with Chronic Low Back Pain. Materials and Methods: Subjects of this study are female patients in the age range of 18-65, who were diagnosed with Chronic Low Back Pain after clinical and radiological investigations and administered treatment regularly in the Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Unit of Dicle University Medical Faculty Hospital. The patients were divided into two groups in a randomized controlled way. While the first group was administered manual therapy and electrotherapy modalities, the second group was administered home-based exercise program and electrotherapy modalities during ten seans by a physiotherapist. Before and at the end of the therapy, ''Visual Analogue Scale'' and ''Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale'' were employed in order to identify the severity of pain and depression condition, respectively. Also, Oswestry Low Back Disability Questionnaire and Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index were conducted in order to evaluate the effect of Low Back Pain on functional condition and sleep quality, respectively. Results: In both groups, a significant difference was found statistically in terms of the severity of pain and sleep quality (p<0.05). In difference between the groups, a considerable improvement was also observed with respect to pain, sleep quality, hospital anxiety and depression conditions and Oswesty Scale. Conclusion: As a result of the evaluation of the patients who were followed during the ten sessions, there was a statistically significant improvement in pain, sleep guality, HAD-anxiety and HAD-depression scores in both groups. It is also worth mentioning that manual therapy outperformed home-based program as far as improvement of the subjects is concerned. Key words: manual therapy, myofascial stretching, home-based exercise, low back pain, electrotherapy