The effect of low level laser therapy and exercise on perceived pain and activities of daily living in low back pain patients /

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of LLLT on pain reduction and daily living activities among low back pain patients when compared to traditional treatment lumbar anaerobic mat exercises. A secondary focus was to establish the extent to which pain and daily living activities change when receiving LLLT and traditional lumbar anaerobic mat exercises as compared to laser alone. The sample included 43 patients with varied low back pathology, 34 females and 10 males. A 3 X 2 repeated measures MANOVA showed that participants did not differ across treatment groups (laser, laser and exercise, and laser only) on the factors of pain and function as measured by the McGill Pain Questionnaire and the Oswestry Low Back Pain Disability Questionnaire F (4, 78) = 2.18, p > .05. However, all groups improved significantly from pretest to posttest score on both outcome measures of pain and function F (2, 39) = 33.82, p less than .001. These data support the findings that when patients are unable to exercise, LLLT is an appropriate alternative for pain reduction and increased daily function for individuals suffering from low back pain.