Chronic Back pain causes significant emotional distress, loss of mobility and is difficult to treat. Chronic pain always requires a multi disciplinary approach. This is because a chronic condition significantly impacts on many aspects of life and there are always psychosocial variables which contribute to the emotional suffering for a better or worse outcome.
Something as simple as yoga appears to relieve pain and improve mood for those with a chronic pain condition. This pain can significantly improve the mobility and quality of life for many sufferers.
90 people with chronic low back pain were assigned to either a yoga group or a control group that received standard medical care in a recent study published in the journal Spine Sept 2009
Those in the yoga group participated in 24 weeks of biweekly yoga classes designed for people with chronic lower-back pain. Six months after the study ended, those in the yoga group reported significantly more improvements in pain and functionality compared with subjects in the other group. In addition, depression was much lower in the yoga subjects. The use of pain medication was reduced, but that reduction was similar in both groups.
"The yoga group had less pain, less functional disability and less depression compared with the control group," Kimberly Williams, the lead investigator, from West Virginia University, said in a news release. "Proponents of yoga have long described its benefits in reducing back pain. But not everyone was convinced. This is a much bigger, much more rigorous evaluation than had been done before."
The classes were taught by an instructor certified in Iyengar yoga, a style that emphasizes posture.
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