title: Motor control exercises reduces pain and disability in chronic and recurrent low back pain: a meta-analysis.
abstract: METHODS
  Meta-analysis of randomized, controlled trials.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To determine the short-term, intermediate, and long-term effectiveness of MCE, with regard to pain and disability, in patients with chronic and recurrent low-back pain.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  Previous meta-analyses have shown no difference between the effects of MCE and general exercise in the treatment of low back pain. Several high quality studies on this topic have been published lately, warranting a new meta-analysis.
  
  
  METHODS
  We searched electronic databases up to October 2011 for randomized controlled trials clearly distinguishing MCE from other treatments. We extracted pain and disability outcomes and converted them to a 0 to 100 scale. We used the RevMan5 (Nordic Cochrane Centre, Copenhagen, Denmark) software to perform pooled analyses to determine the weighted mean differences (WMDs) between MCE and 5 different control interventions.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Sixteen studies were included. The pooled results favored MCE compared with general exercise with regard to disability during all time periods (improvement in WMDs ranged from -4.65 to -4.86), and with regard to pain in the short and intermediate term (WMDs were -7.80 and -6.06, respectively). Compared with spinal manual therapy, MCE was superior with regard to disability during all time periods (the WMDs ranged between -5.27 and -6.12), but not with regard to pain. Furthermore, MCE was superior to minimal intervention during all time periods with regard to both pain (the WMDs ranged between -10.18 and -13.32) and disability (the WMDs ranged between -5.62 and -9.00).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  In patients with chronic and recurrent low back pain, MCE seem to be superior to several other treatments. More studies are, however, needed to investigate what subgroups of patients experiencing LBP respond best to MCE.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurobiology, Division of Physiotherapy Caring Sciences, and Society, Karolinska Institute, Huddinge, Sweden.
authors.forename: Martin Gustaf
authors.initials: MG
authors.lastname: Byström
authors.forename: Eva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Rasmussen-Barr
authors.forename: Wilhelmus Johannes Andreas
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Grooten
mesh_terms: D002908:Chronic Disease; D006233:Persons with Disabilities / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D005081:Exercise Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D017116:Low Back Pain / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D010146:Pain / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; D016896:Treatment Outcome