In a new study, researchers found that yoga and physical therapy (PT) are effective approaches to treating co-occurring sleep disturbance and back pain while reducing the need for medication.
The research was conducted by a team from Boston Medical Center (BMC).
Sleep disturbance and insomnia are common among people with chronic low back pain (cLBP).
Previous research showed that 59% of people with cLBP experience poor sleep quality and 53% are diagnosed with insomnia disorder.
Medication for both sleep and back pain can have serious side effects, and the risk of opioid-related overdose and death increases with the use of sleep medications.
In the study, the team tested 320 adults with lower back pain from BMC and seven surrounding community health centers.
At the beginning of the study, over 90 percent of participants with cLBP were found to suffer from poor sleep.
Participants were assigned one of three different therapies for cLBP: physical therapy, weekly yoga, or reading educational materials.
Results for sleep improvements were compared over a 12-week intervention period and after 1 year of follow-up.
The team found big improvements in sleep quality lasting 52 weeks after 12 weeks of yoga classes or 1-on-1 PT, which suggests a long-term benefit of these non-pharmacologic approaches.
In addition, participants with early improvements in pain after 6 weeks of treatment were three and a half times more likely to have improvements in sleep after the full, 12-week treatment, highlighting that pain and sleep are closely related.
The team says sleep problems in adults with chronic low back pain can have detrimental effects on a person’s overall health and well-being.
This really emphasizes the need for providers to ask patients with chronic low back pain about the quality of their sleep.
Given the serious risks of combining pain and sleep medications, non-drug treatments should be considered for these patients.
One author of the study is Eric Roseen, DC, MSc, a researcher in the department of family medicine at BMC.
The study is published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
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