Cochrane

Cochrane

Cochrane

therapy machine for back pain

We included 10 RCTs involving a total of 1025 participants with chronic LBP. The included studies were carried out in secondary care settings in Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Croatia, the UK, and the USA, and most applied therapeutic ultrasound in addition to another treatment, for six to 18 treatment sessions. The risk of bias was unclear in most studies. Eight studies (80%) had unclear or high risk of selection bias; no studies blinded care providers to the intervention; and only five studies (50%) blinded participants. There was a risk of selective reporting in eight studies (80%), and no studies adequately assessed compliance with the intervention.

There was very low-certainty evidence (downgraded for imprecision, inconsistency, and limitations in design) of little to no difference between therapeutic ultrasound and placebo for short-term pain improvement (mean difference (MD) −7.12, 95% confidence interval (CI) −17.99 to 3.75; n = 121, 3 RCTs; 0-to-100-point visual analogue scale (VAS)). There was also moderate-certainty evidence (downgraded for imprecision) of little to no difference in the number of participants achieving a 30% reduction in pain in the short term (risk ratio 1.08, 95% CI 0.81 to 1.44; n = 225, 1 RCT). There was low-certainty evidence (downgraded for imprecision and limitations in design) that therapeutic ultrasound has a small effect on back-specific function compared with placebo in the short term (standardised mean difference −0.29, 95% CI −0.51 to −0.07 (MD −1.07, 95% CI −1.89 to −0.26; Roland Morris Disability Questionnaire); n = 325; 4 RCTs), but this effect does not appear to be clinically important. There was moderate-certainty evidence (downgraded for imprecision) of little to no difference between therapeutic ultrasound and placebo on well-being (MD −2.71, 95% CI −9.85 to 4.44; n = 267, 2 RCTs; general health subscale of the 36-item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36)). Two studies (n = 486) reported on overall improvement and satisfaction between groups, and both reported little to no difference between groups (low-certainty evidence, downgraded for serious imprecision). One study (n = 225) reported on adverse events and did not identify any adverse events related to the intervention (low-certainty evidence, downgraded for serious imprecision). No study reported on disability for this comparison.

We do not know whether therapeutic ultrasound in addition to exercise results in better outcomes than exercise alone because the certainty of the evidence for all outcomes was very low (downgraded for imprecision and serious limitations in design). The estimate effect for pain was in favour of the ultrasound plus exercise group (MD −21.1, 95% CI −27.6 to −14.5; n = 70, 2 RCTs; 0-to-100-point VAS) at short term. Regarding back-specific function (MD − 0.41, 95% CI −3.14 to 2.32; n = 79, 2 RCTs; Oswestry Disability Questionnaire) and well-being (MD −2.50, 95% CI −9.53 to 4.53; n = 79, 2 RCTs; general health subscale of the SF-36), there was little to no difference between groups at short term. No studies reported on the number of participants achieving a 30% reduction in pain, patient satisfaction, disability, or adverse events for this comparison.

This post was last modified on November 29, 2024 7:52 am