Yoga Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Yoga, including details on benefits, health, treatment, back pain.

Effect of Iyengar yoga therapy for chronic low back pain.

Williams KA, Petronis J, Smith D, Goodrich D, Wu J, Ravi N, Doyle EJ, Gregory Juckett R, Munoz Kolar M, Gross R, Steinberg L

Dept. Community Medicine, West Virginia University School of Medicine, Morgantown, WV 26505, USA. kwilliams@hsc.wvu.edu

Low back pain is a significant public health problem and one of the most commonly reported reasons for the use of Complementary Alternative Medicine. A randomized control trial was conducted in subjects with non-specific chronic low back pain comparing Iyengar yoga therapy to an educational control group. Both programs were 16 weeks long. Subjects were primarily self-referred and screened by primary care physicians for study of inclusion/exclusion criteria. The primary outcome for the study was functional disability. Secondary outcomes including present pain intensity, pain medication usage, pain-related attitudes and behaviors, and spinal range of motion were measured before and after the interventions. Subjects had low back pain for 11.2+/-1.54 years and 48% used pain medication. Overall, subjects presented with less pain and lower functional disability than subjects in other published intervention studies for chronic low back pain. Of the 60 subjects enrolled, 42 (70%) completed the study. Multivariate analyses of outcomes in the categories of medical, functional, psychological and behavioral factors indicated that significant differences between groups existed in functional and medical outcomes but not for the psychological or behavioral outcomes. Univariate analyses of medical and functional outcomes revealed significant reductions in pain intensity (64%), functional disability (77%) and pain medication usage (88%) in the yoga group at the post and 3-month follow-up assessments. These preliminary data indicate that the majority of self-referred persons with mild chronic low back pain will comply to and report improvement on medical and functional pain-related outcomes from Iyengar yoga therapy.

Published 19 April 2005 in Pain, 115(1): 107-17.
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