Exercise and nonspecific low back pain: a literature review.
We reviewed the literature to clarify the effects of exercise in preventing and treating nonspecific low back pain. We evaluated several characteristics of exercise programs including specificity, individual tailoring, supervision, motivation enhancement, volume, and intensity. The results show that exercise is effective in the primary and secondary prevention of low back pain. When used for curative treatment, exercise diminishes disability and pain severity while improving fitness and occupational status in patients who have subacute, recurrent, or chronic low back pain. Patients with acute low back pain are usually advised to continue their everyday activities to the greatest extent possible rather than to start an exercise program. Supervision is crucial to the efficacy of exercise programs. Whether general or specific exercises are preferable is unclear, and neither is there clear evidence that one-on-one sessions are superior to group sessions. Further studies are needed to determine which patient subsets respond to specific characteristics of exercise programs and which exercise volumes and intensities are optimal.
Henchoz
Yves
Y
Institut des sciences du sport et de l'éducation physique, Université de Lausanne, Centre administratif de Vidy, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland. yves.henchoz@unil.ch
Kai-Lik So
Alexander
A
D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D015444:Exercise; D005081:Exercise Therapy; D006801:Humans; D017116:Low Back Pain / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D016239:MEDLINE; D010147:Pain Measurement; D012720:Severity of Illness Index