Lower back pain? Yoga therapy can help.
Yoga is a critical tool in my physical therapy practice when working with patients suffering from chronic back pain. Since I have incorporated yoga poses and breathing and relaxation techniques into my interventions, patients return to their activities more quickly and report pain relief faster. Integrating yoga into physical therapy helps patients to relax tense muscles that are unconsciously being contracted to guard their bodies from pain. I think patients like therapeutic yoga because the movements are simple and specific to what needs to be addressed. They can feel a difference in their bodies when they come out of a pose. I keep foam blocks, straps, and bolsters in the treatment room so I can support each patient exactly how they need to be supported in the poses. I use poses similar to the ones shown in this article below.
My favorite part of working with people is to teach them how to improvise at home to reproduce what we've done together. I don't want my patients to 'need' me to be with them to feel better. Teaching someone in pain how to control their symptoms in between sessions is very rewarding. Even better is when they are confident enough to continue their practice independently. There is too much fun to be had in life to be in therapy 3 times a week!
I hope you enjoy the article below. It is from Harvard University's Medical School health publication. Feel free to ask me more about pairing the manual therapy practices of physical therapy with yoga therapeutics to treat low back pain.
Best,
Crystal
Yoga has become a familiar part of the health and fitness scene in the United States. Nearly 16 million Americans currently practice yoga. Another nine million say they plan to try it within the year. Although many people turn to yoga to ease stress and improve overall health, a growing number have specific medical aims and are following the recommendations of their doctors.
According to a study in the journal Spine (Sept. 1, 2009), yoga therapy can reduce pain and improve function in people with chronic low back pain. Chronic low back pain—defined as pain that lasts more than three months—is notoriously difficult to treat. Not surprisingly, it drives many sufferers to turn to alternative and complementary therapies in search of relief. The Spine study is the second of two randomized trials to test a specific form of yoga called Iyengar (pronounced eye-en-gar) yoga, which is based on the teachings of B.K.S. Iyengar, one of the world's most well-known living yoga teachers.
Iyengar yoga vs. classic hatha yoga
Most yoga taught and practiced in this country is hatha yoga, which combines: classic poses (asanas), controlled breathing, and deep relaxation or meditation. Iyengar is a type of hatha yoga that uses props such as blankets, blocks, benches, and belts to help people perform the poses to the fullest extent possible even if they lack experience or have physical limitations. The emphasis is on precise physical alignment, with trained teachers adjusting everything from the position of the shoulders to the angle of the toes.
Iyengar adjustments to classic yoga poses Iyengar yoga uses blocks, belts, and other props to help students perform classic yoga poses such as those shown in the grey insets above: parivrtta trikonasana, or the revolved triangle pose (A), and ardha uttanasana, or the standing half forward bend (B). Instructions are individualized, with adjustments made for age, experience, body type, physical condition, and medical problems. |
What the research revealed
With funding from the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, researchers at West Virginia University enrolled 90 adults to participate in a yearlong trial comparing the effects of Iyengar yoga therapy with those of standard medical care. Participants ranged in age from 23 to 66, and all were suffering chronic low back pain. About half of them were assigned to 24 weeks of a twice-weekly, 90-minute regimen approved by B.K.S. Iyengar and taught by a certified Iyengar yoga instructor and two assistants with experience in teaching yoga therapy to people with chronic low back pain. On days when they didn’t have a yoga class, they were instructed to practice at home for 30 minutes using a DVD, props, and an instruction manual. The rest of the participants (the control group) continued with usual medical care and were followed with monthly telephone calls to gather information about their medications or other therapies.
All subjects reported on functional disability, pain intensity, depression, and medication use at the start of the study, midway through (12 weeks), immediately afterward (24 weeks), and at a follow-up six months later. Compared with the control group, the Iyengar group experienced a 29% reduction in functional disability, a 42% reduction in pain, and a 46% reduction in depressive symptoms at 24 weeks. There was also a greater trend toward lower medication use in the yoga group. There were no reports of adverse effects. Six months after the trial ended, 68% of the yoga group was still practicing yoga — on average, three days a week for at least 30 minutes. Their levels of functional disability, pain, and depression had increased slightly but were still lower than those of the control group.
The study had limitations — a small number of participants, as well as reliance on the participants’ own reports of symptoms and disability. Also, the control group, on average, had been suffering back pain longer than the yoga group. Still, the results are consistent with findings from other studies of yoga for low back pain.
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