QUESTION: In people with nerve-related leg pain, does adding neurodynamic treatment to advice to remain active improve leg pain, disability, low back pain, function, global perceived effect and location of symptoms? DESIGN: Randomised trial with concealed allocation and intention-to-treat analysis. PARTICIPANTS: Sixty participants with nerve-related leg pain recruited from the community. INTERVENTIONS: The experimental group received four sessions of neurodynamic treatment. Both groups received advice to remain active. OUTCOME MEASURES: Leg pain and low back pain (0 none to 10 worst), Oswestry Disability Index (0 none to 100 worst), Patient-Specific Functional Scale (0 unable to perform to 30 able to perform), global perceived effect (-5 to 5) and location of symptoms were measured at 2 and 4 weeks after randomisation. Continuous outcomes were analysed by linear mixed models. Location of symptoms was assessed by relative risk (95% CI). RESULTS: At 2 weeks, the experimental group did not have significantly greater improvement that the control group in leg pain (MD -1.1, 95% CI -2.3 to 0.1) or disability (MD -3.3, 95% CI -9.6 to 2.9). At 4 weeks, the experimental group experienced a significantly greater reduction in leg pain (MD -2.4, 95% CI -3.6 to -1.2) and low back pain (MD -1.5, 95% CI -2.8 to -0.2). The experimental group also improved significantly more in function at 2 weeks (MD 5.2, 95% CI 2.2 to 8.2) and 4 weeks (MD 4.7, 95% CI 1.7 to 7.8), as well as global perceived effect at 2 weeks (MD 2.5, 95% CI 1.6 to 3.5) and 4 weeks (MD 2.9, 95% CI 1.9 to 3.9). No significant between-group differences occurred in disability at 4 weeks and location of symptoms. CONCLUSION: Adding neurodynamic treatment to advice to remain active did not improve leg pain and disability at 2 weeks. TRIAL REGISTRATION: NCT01954199.

Full text (sometimes free) may be available at these link(s):      help

• DOI
• PubMed
• PDF locator
• publisher