Aquatic therapy versus standard care in 34 patients with chronic low back pain
This randomized controlled trial investigated the effects of aquatic therapy compared to standard care in a population of 34 individuals with chronic low back pain. The study followed participants for a duration of 10 weeks to assess various clinical and psychological outcomes. The primary focus included pain, disability, and quality of life, alongside secondary outcomes such as anxiety, depression, pain catastrophizing, kinesiophobia, and sleep disturbance.
Regarding the main results, both the aquatic therapy and standard care groups demonstrated significant improvements in pain, disability, and quality of life, with p-values less than 0.05 for these measures. No significant group-by-time interactions were found for these primary outcomes, indicating that the trajectory of improvement was similar across both groups. However, specific secondary outcomes favored the aquatic therapy group. Significant reductions in kinesiophobia were observed only in the aquatic therapy group (p = 0.002), and significant reductions in sleep disturbance were also observed only in the aquatic therapy group (p = 0.001).
Safety and tolerability data were not reported in this study, and no adverse events, serious adverse events, or discontinuations were documented. The study limitations include the small sample size of 34 participants, which may affect the precision of the estimates. The practice relevance suggests that aquatic therapy may offer a more comfortable treatment alternative to address psychological factors associated with chronic low back pain.
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