BMJ  2004;329 (25 September), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7468.0-b

Advice may be sufficient for back pain

Patients with low back pain may not need physiotherapy. Frost and colleagues (p 708) randomised 286 patients with mild to moderate low back pain to routine physiotherapy or advice from a physiotherapist to remain active. They found that after 12 months patients who had physiotherapy were more likely to report enhanced perceptions of benefit, but this was not shown by disease specific or generic outcome measures. Advice may be all that is needed for these patients, say the authors.

Credit: A.J. PHOTO/HOP AMERICAN/SPL

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Randomised controlled trial of physiotherapy compared with advice for low back pain

Helen Frost, Sarah E Lamb, Helen A Doll, Patricia Taffe Carver, and Sarah Stewart-Brown
BMJ 2004 329: 708. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]