The Relative Efficacy Of A Six-Week Tripartite Physiotherapeutic Modality In The Management Of Chronic Low Back Pain

The objective of this study was to determine the efficacy of a six-week tripartite Physiotherapeutic modality in the management of non-specific chronic low back pain with the pain numerical rating scale serving as the principal outcome measure. A major research question was raised with a corresponding null hypothesis formulated for it and tested at 0.05 level of significance. A Quasi-experimental design involving one group pretest-posttest design was selected for the study with ten 10 participants purposively recruited with strict adherence to clearly defined inclusion and exclusion criteria. The participants were managed with a ternary management technique involving fifteen minutes of Infrared Radiation IR twenty minutes of Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation TENS and ten minutes of Soft Tissue Massage STM to the low back region. Each participant was managed thrice a week for a duration of six weeks and the data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics to answer the raised research question while Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test was used to test the hypothesis. The results of this study showed that there was a significant reduction in the pain experienced by the participants. Hence it was concluded that the Physiotherapeutic intervention was effective in the management of chronic low back pain judging by the overall decrease in the pain intensity.