For chronic lower back pain, yoga may work as well as physical therapy according to : The Washington Post

The questionBesides pain medicine, physical therapy is a common prescription for people with chronic back pain. The results were essentially the same for people who had practiced yoga and those who had gotten physical therapy. Adults with chronic low back pain, which not only can be painful but also can limit movement and restrict activity. This studyThe study involved 320 adults (average age: 46) with moderate to severe chronic lower back pain. By the end of the study, the physical therapy and yoga groups, on average, showed more improvement in pain levels and in ability to function than did the others, and they were more likely to have stopped taking pain medicine.




Plenty of studies have shown that yoga can be effective at treating lower back pain and reducing dependence on pain meds. They're often stuck relying on addictive pain meds or spending a fortune on physical therapy. The second group went to 15 physical therapy visits, and the third got to go to 12 weeks of yoga classes tailored to help lower back pain. Patients who tried yoga worked through gentle poses like cat-cow, triangle pose, and child's pose, while those in physical therapy tried other stretching and strengthening exercises. This week, a study in the Annals of Internal Medicine—a high-ranking medical journal—showed that it can actually be just as effective as physical therapy.

Yoga might be as good as physical therapy for lower back pain, says study

Yoga may be about as good as physical therapy for treating lower back pain, according to a new study published in a major medical journal. The groups in physical therapy and yoga both used less pain medication than the control group. Saper and his colleagues found that the weekly yoga classes helped manage pain almost as much as physical therapy, and more than education. They split the patients into three groups, sending one to weekly yoga classes, another to weekly physical therapy sessions, and giving a third control group a book and regularly mailed newsletters on managing pain. The research bolsters the scientific case for yoga as a potential therapy for back pain.


collected by :Lucy William

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