Effect of Global Postural Reeducation in Patients with Nonspecific Chronic Low Back Pain - a Pilot Study

Global postural reeducation (GPR) has been developed over recent decades and has shown success in the treatment of chronic low back pain (LBP). The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of GPR associated with a conventional reeducation protocol to that of the conventional reeducation protocol alone on pain, mobility, function and psychological symptoms in patients with non-specific LBP.

This randomized controlled trial enrolled patients diagnosed with chronic LBP. The patients were randomized into two groups: a GPR group who received GPR associated with a conventional reeducation protocol and a control group who received conventional reeducation alone. Two evaluations were performed for both groups: at baseline (T0) and at the end of the 4-week session period (T1). The parameters evaluated comprised pain (measured using the Visual Analog Scale, VAS), mobility (by the Fingertip-to-floor test (FFT) and the Schober index), muscle endurance (by the Shirado and the Sorensen tests), function (by the Oswestry Disability index (ODI)) and anxiety-depressive symptoms (by the Hospital Anxiety and Depression scale (HADs)).

A total of 26 patients were enrolled, with 13 in the GPR group and 13 in the control group. At the 4 weeks' evaluation, the GPR group showed significantly greater improvements in pain (p=0.04), lumbar mobility (p=0.007) and functional disability (p=0.02) compared to the control group. No differences between the two groups were found regarding muscular endurance and anxiety-depressive symptoms at the 4-weeks evaluation.

Our findings suggested that GPR combined with conventional reeducation methods holds promise as an effective treatment approach for common LBP, particularly in improving pain levels, lumbar mobility and functional disability.