Low-level Heat Wrap Therapy Safely Reduces Low Back Pain And Improves Mobility I

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Low-level Heat Wrap Therapy Safely Reduces Low Back Pain And Improves

Mobility In The Workplace

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=36436

The use of continuous low-level heat wrap therapy (CLHT)

significantly reduces acute low back pain and related disability and

improves occupational performance of employees in physically

demanding jobs suffering from acute low back pain, according to a

s Hopkins study published in the December 2005 issue of The

Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

" With recent concerns around the safety of oral pain medications,

both patients and physicians are considering alternative treatment

options for acute low back pain, " said J. Bernacki, M.D.,

M.P.H., associate professor of medicine at The s Hopkins

University School of Medicine and the study's principal

investigator. " The dramatic relief we see in workers using CLHT shows

that this therapy has clear benefits for low back pain and that it

plays an important role in pain management. Physicians and other

health care providers in an occupational environment can tell

patients that CLHT is a safe and effective alternative for treating

acute low back plain. "

In the study, 43 patients (age 20 to 62) who visited an occupational

injury clinic for low back pain were randomized into one of two

intervention arms: 18 patients received education regarding back

therapy and pain management alone, while 25 received education

regarding back therapy and pain management combined with three

consecutive days of CLHT for eight hours continuously (ThermaCare®

HeatWraps). The heat wrap is a wrap worn over the lower back, under

the clothing. It uses an exothermic chemical reaction to deliver a

low level of topical heat for at least eight continuous hours. All

groups were assessed for measures of pain intensity and pain relief

levels four times a day during the three treatment days, followed by

measures for pain intensity and pain relief levels obtained in three

follow-up visits on days 4, 7, and 14 from the beginning of the

treatment. In addition, other measures were obtained and assessed by

the Roland- Low Back Disability Questionnaire and the Lifeware

Musculoskeletal Abbreviated Assessment Form.

Patients who received CLHT for low back pain over a three-day period

in conjunction with pain management education experienced rapid and

significant reduction in pain intensity and greater pain relief when

compared to patients who only received pain education. Patients on

CLHT showed a 52 percent reduction in pain intensity and a 43 percent

improvement in pain relief within one day of treatment as compared to

the reference group. Both pain intensity reduction and pain relief

were maintained for the three days of treatment with CLHT at 60

percent and 41 percent, respectively. Additionally, the benefits of

pain relief and pain intensity reduction were maintained at a

significant level in the CLHT patients in a follow-up period on day 4

and day 14 after treatment was discontinued.

Low back pain is one of the most common and therefore costly medical

problems in industrialized countries, according to Bernacki, who also

directs the Hopkins Department of Health, Safety and the Environment.

Approximately 50 percent of working-age people in the United States

are reported to suffer from acute low back pain every year, and it is

estimated that the annual productivity loss from this condition

totals between $20 and $50 billion. While guidelines for treating

back pain are available, little has been done to translate these

recommendations into occupational management to prevent episodic

disability and loss of productivity and to improve employee

effectiveness in the workplace, notes Bernacki.