By Pat Anson, PNN Editor

Older adults suffering from chronic low back pain experienced faster pain relief after getting a new type of physical therapy focused on strengthening their hip muscles, according to a new study.

The study findings, recently reported in The Lancet Rheumatology, are notable given the limited research on back pain therapies for older adults.

“Unfortunately, the societal attitude is that older people don’t warrant the same level of care that younger people do when it comes to musculoskeletal problems,” lead author Gregory Hicks, PhD, Distinguished Professor of Health Sciences at the University of Delaware, said in a press release.

“When I started this work, there were a lot of naysayers. I’d tell them, ‘Read the literature — why are we excluding older adults from low back pain research?’ We all hope to get older. Why ignore a place in time where we all hope to end up?”

Hicks and his colleagues enrolled 184 people aged 60 or older who reported moderate low back pain, hip pain, and muscle weakness for at least 6 months. Patients were randomly assigned to a hip-focused physical therapy known as Manual Therapy and Strengthening the Hip (MASH) or a more traditional physical therapy for back pain that focused on the spine. Both groups received therapy for eight weeks at the University of Delaware, Duke University or the University of Pittsburgh.

Researchers found that participants who received the MASH therapy had more pain relief after eight weeks than those who had spine-focused therapy. They also showed more improvement in walking endurance and in their ability to rise from a seated position. However, after six months, both groups showed similar levels of improvement.

Previous research by Hicks, funded by the National Institutes of Health, has studied the impact of hip impairment, vitamin D deficiency, and trunk muscle composition in older patients with low back pain. He learned that there were distinct sub-groups of patients with back pain who had unique characteristics and treatment needs.

“It’s becoming quite clear, if you make the assumption that all low back pain is the same, you’re wrong,” said Hicks. “If you can identify sub-groups of low back pain patients with similar traits, you can develop matched treatments, which hopefully lead to better outcomes.”

Low back pain is the leading cause of disability worldwide. According to a recent Harris Poll, nearly 3 out of 10 U.S. adults currently suffer from chronic low back pain, surpassing the number of Americans who have arthritis, diabetes or heart disease. On average, the typical back pain sufferer has sought relief from at least three healthcare providers, with many treatments such as epidural steroid injections proving ineffective.