Abstract
Background: Low back pain affects every population and is one of world’s foremost debilitating conditions. Low back pain is common musculoskeletal disorder and a global burden. Approximately 70% to 80% people have experienced low back pain at some point in their life. The annual prevalence of low back pain ranges from 15% to 45% but is largely dependent on population being studied and surveillance methods (9). The goal of this case was to see if manual therapy can help a ptient with chronic back pain.
Case Presentation: The patient is a 39 year old male who played baseball throughout high school. The patient had low back pain and when consulted a doctor, surgery was recommended. The patient received a laser microdiscectomy on his L4 and L5 but did not get any relief. Now the patient is still having low back pain which radiates into the buttocks and sometimes into the quad.
Therapist Assessment: The therapist is a student enrolled in a 1278-hour, 18 month intensive massage therapy program. The therapist has had extensive training in manual therapy and how anatomical changes can affect pain in the body. During each treatment, the therapist completed a full posturology chart which includes up to 84 measurements of the body. Measurements indicate multiple distortions.
Treatments: The patient received manual therapy treatment twice a week in which each treatment lasted an hour long. The study went on for 5 weeks and due to prior commitments the patient missed one week of treatment.
Outcomes: The symptoms showed clinically significant improvement from the manual therapy treatments. Although the symptoms during treatment would go and come back during the time of the study, the end results were positive. Overall the patient was happy with the study and managed to find relief from the issues that he was having.
Keywords: Laser discectomy; back pain; sacrum pain; massage