Active clinical trials for "Back Pain"

This study is designed to compare the safety, as measured by skin findings and adverse events, of two different heat devices in elderly, overweight, and elderly and overweight subjects.

The overall goal of the Lumbar Image Reporting with Epidemiology (LIRE) is to perform a large, pragmatic, cluster randomized controlled trial to determine the effectiveness of a simple, inexpensive and easy to deploy intervention - insertion of epidemiological benchmarks into lumbar spine imaging reports - at reducing subsequent tests and treatments. The investigator's main hypothesis is that for patients referred from primary care providers, inserting epidemiological evidence in lumbar spine imaging reports will reduce subsequent diagnostic and therapeutic interventions, including cross-sectional imaging (MR/CT), opioid prescriptions, spinal injections and surgery.

The study will establish data on the function of trunk muscles in healthy and low back pain patient's pre and post dry needling treatment. This will help in understanding the underlying mechanism of this treatment and reveal the effect of dry needling on muscle performance. Study hypothesis is that an improvement of back muscle function following dry needling procedure will be found.

Drug therapy in patients with chronic low back pain is a major challenge for physicians. One of the problems is the lacking knowledge in prediction of drug efficacy in a chosen patient. Usually one of the classes of pain medication is given to patients with a similar clinical picture, although different pain mechanisms may be responsible for this clinical picture. Another reason for variable drug efficacy are genetic polymorphisms, this may be the reason why an unique drug produces different responses (from a lacking analgesic effect up to excessive effect or side-effects. Quantitative sensory testing is a method that documents alterations in the pain perception system. Linking genetic polymorphisms to quantitative sensory testing may give us a tool for anticipation of drug efficacy.

Epidural injection will be completed under fluoroscopy and all patients will receive 1-4 mg of Midazolam for relaxation before procedure and, if needed, 50-100 mcg of Fentanyl intravenous (IV). Radiopaque contrast (Omnipaque 300), for confirming the epidural position of the needle, steroids and local anesthetic agents will be used according to the physician performing the block and will not be controlled by the study. Patients will be randomly assigned to receive either inhaled Entonox along with the interventional block they are scheduled for or oxygen. They will be blinded about the treatment they are receiving. Those randomized to Entonox will inhale the gas through a mouthpiece throughout the procedure and also continue to receive it for a total of 4 hours in the recovery. Those randomized to the oxygen group will receive oxygen through a similar mouthpiece for the entire duration of the procedure and recovery for 4 hours. Following completion of procedure the patient will be transferred to recovery and monitored for 3-5 hours then discharged home with instructions. Possible side effects will be monitored and recorded, pain score of patient will be recorded before discharge. All the patients will receive standard instructions regarding physical back exercises. This will be repeated for every procedure up to maximum of three blocks. The patients will be followed during each block and over a period of 1, 3, 6 and 12 months and on each follow-up visit will complete computerized set of questionnaires as they did before the procedure. The patients charts will be then reviewed for one year after the initial procedure to determine if further epidural steroid injections or surgery for the presenting problem were required. It is anticipated that the appropriate number of patients will be enrolled within six months of study initiation.

This is a pilot project intended to determine the feasibility of detecting soft tissue changes in response to osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT). MRIs of the lumbar and pelvic regions of low back pain (LBP) patients will be taken once before and at two different time points after OMT. Images obtained will be quantitatively analyzed for changes in the volumes of back muscles and for changes (T2 signals) indicative of activity levels or pathological conditions. Electromyography (EMG) will be used as an independent measure of back muscle activity for comparison with MRI results.

The motor cortex of the brain changes following chronic pain and injury, and this is linked to pain-associated changes in motor behaviour. This study aimed to investigate whether therapeutic exercises in patients with chronic pain can induce reorganisation of the motor cortex and restore normal motor behaviour. The investigators hypothesised that motor training can induce reorganisation of the motor cortex and that these changes are related to improved motor behaviour.

Low back pain has become a major concern to employees and employers because of its negative impact on employee health and productivity. The objective of this study is to investigate whether a return-to-work intervention conducted during inpatient rehabilitation improves functional limitations that are related with low back pain and interfere with job performance.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of back supports plus education upon recovery from a work-related low back disorder. The study tests the hypothesis: the use of back supports plus health education is not different from health education alone in promoting recovery from a work-related low back disorder in consideration of personal, health, and job factors. Significant improvements in physical health, neurogenic symptoms, back pain disability, and low back pain were observed over the twelve months of study follow-up. No statistically significant difference between the study groups was found with respect to these measures.

The primary purpose of this study is to determine the effectiveness of two psychological techniques in chronic low back pain patients treated in hospital pain clinics. The techniques are: cognitive behavioral treatment and mindfulness based stress reduction (MBSR). This is a multiple site project in which patients come from 16 different pain clinics throughout Spain. The control group is formed by patients under usual medical treatment at pain clinics. The two intervention groups also receive usual medical treatment at pain clinics plus one psychological therapy treatment. The sample size is 330 subjects.