OBJECTIVE: To investigate whether adding neural mobilization to a standard postoperative physical therapy program could improve the outcomes of patients after lumbar laminectomy. DESIGN: A single blinded randomized controlled trial. SETTING: Outpatient setting. PARTICIPANTS: Sixty participants of both sexes who had undergone lumbar laminectomy. INTERVENTIONS: Participants were allocated randomly to two groups; study and control groups. All patients received a standard postoperative physical therapy program. Those in the study group received additional neural mobilization in the form of straight leg raising and dorsiflexion with two-ended slider. Treatment was administered three times/week for six successive weeks. OUTCOME MEASURES: Visual analog scale (VAS), Oswestry Disability Index (ODI), and H-reflex latency were measured pre and post-treatment. RESULTS: The mean age of participants was 44.23 +/- 4.64 and 45.3 +/- 5.3 in study and control groups respectively (p > 0.05). There were statistically significant differences in VAS, ODI, and H-reflex latency in favor of the study group (p < 0.05). The mean +/- SD for VAS, ODI, and H-reflex latency pre versus post treatment was 6.13 +/- 1.22 versus 1.40 +/- 0.77, 64.46 +/- 4.05 versus 16.86 +/- 2.55, and 32.07 +/- 2.76 versus 27.46 +/- 1.79 in study group and 5.86 +/- 1.07 versus 2.46 +/- 0.73, 63.93 +/- 3.91 versus 23.40 +/- 2.93, and 31.76 +/- 2.69 versus 29.4 +/- 1.94 in control group, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Neural mobilization combined with traditional physical therapy program achieved better improvement in pain, functional disability and H-reflex in patients who underwent decompressive laminectomy than traditional physical therapy program only.

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

• DOI
• PubMed
• PDF locator
• publisher