Active clinical trials for "Back Pain"

The aim of the study is to study how to improve patients' management of chronic back pain, particularly their management of prescription medication, through increasing health literacy and patient empowerment through an internet based intervention. We do this by designing both patient education materials and physician communication strategies to increase literacy and volitional components of patients. We will test two conditions using a website called Oneself: one providing only information (literacy-only control) and a second providing relational communications designed to increase both literacy and volitional empowerment. To test the self-management enhancing effects of empowerment and health literacy, we will conduct a longitudinal experiment with 51 chronich back pain patients over two months. This span of time is the minimum necessary to achieve a systematic change in self-management and literacy skills, increasing also the range of possible decisions to be made and actions to be real-ized by the patients.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of pregabalin comparing with the conventional analgesic care in chronic low back pain patients with accompanying lower limb pain (neuropathic component) treated in primary care settings under routine clinical practice.

Manual treatment offers benefit to some patients suffering from back pain but little is known about which of the many tissue layers are affected. This study will help identify which tissues may be stimulated sufficiently to be a source for the clinical effects of treatment and to prioritize future work to understand mechanisms of back pain and to improve care. Current soft-tissue ultrasound elastography techniques, under static condition, will be extended to quantify relative displacement and strains(active and passive)across the depth of tissue strata that arise from small amplitude motions during continuous passive motion clinical procedures and in weight bearing postures. Relative movement of the stratified layers of the back, from treatment and task-generated perturbations, will enable the elastography interrogation of the tissue.

Eighty percent of Canadians experience low back pain (LBP) at some point in their life (Waddell, 1987), with a point prevalence of up to 30 percent (O'Sullivan, 2005; Waddell, 1987). Low back pain has severe economic ramifications. Most incidents of low back pain occur during the prime working years of life, with an estimated cost to the economy at $14,744 Canadian dollars per person per year (Health Canada, 1998). Indirect costs in the form of long-term disability were highest for disorders of arthritis and chronic back pain (Health Canada, 1998). It has been estimated that 12 percent of patients will experience disability within one year after their first episode of low back pain (Banner, 2006). Evidence based diagnosis and treatment is important for desirable outcomes. The investigators predict that there will be changes in A) trunk muscle electromyographic patterns and in temporo-spatial gait patterns following osteopathic treatment.

The purpose of this study is whether patients suffering from chronic back pain for more than one year will show a specific neurophysiological pattern in the EEG. This pattern is referred to as Thalamo-Cortical Dysrhythmia (TCD) and consists most likely of a self sustaining loop between the Cortex and Thalamus. This pattern has been found before in patients with very severe chronic pain. Specific lesions to the Thalamus result in a reduction of this pattern and decrease in pain. With this study the investigators will assess whether this pattern can be found in back pain patients of different types. Patients will be measured by EEG for the existence of TCD and will undergo detailed pain and psychological diagnostic.

The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between pain, and balance, proprioception sensation in the knee, erector spinae and multifidus muscle strength in individuals with non-specific low back pain.

Exercise and education is recommended as the first-line treatment by evidence-based, international guidelines for low back pain (LBP). Despite consensus regarding treatment, there is a gap between guidelines and what is offered to patients and less than half of the patients with nonspecific low back pain receive proper first-line care. The aim of this study was to examine the short-term effect in pain and function in people with nonspecific LBP, participating in the digitally delivered treatment program Joint Academy.

This study will examine the accuracy of an ultrasound-guided L5 dorsal ramus block technique.

Digital body charts are used to assess the pain experience in people with pain. People are asked to report their pain by shading a human body template on a digital tablet. The aim of this study is to investigate whether people with chronic low back pain, compared to healthy volunteers, consistently locate on a digital body chart all nociceptive stimuli induced in the lumbar region.

This is an observational study that aims to characterize individual response of patients getting physical therapy for chronic non-specific low back pain. Participants will be classified based on a questionnaire and motor tests to investigate whether individual improvement after physical therapy may be predicted. These observations may help to decide which should be the preferred treatment offered.