Bed rest ineffective for sciatica
Four pages on PainSci cite Vroomen 1999: 1. Mobilize! 2. How to Treat Sciatic Nerve Pain 3. The Complete Guide to Low Back Pain 4. The Art of Rest
PainSci commentary on Vroomen 1999: ?This page is one of thousands in the PainScience.com bibliography. It is not a general article: it is focused on a single scientific paper, and it may provide only just enough context for the summary to make sense. Links to other papers and more general information are provided wherever possible.
In this sciatica study, researchers assigned 183 subjects “either bed rest or watchful waiting” for two weeks and found that “bed rest is not a more effective therapy than watchful waiting.” Nor is it less effective. The results were exactly the same. If that sounds like no big deal, consider the difference in the lives of those patients: two weeks of bed rest, compared to two weeks of going about your business!
original abstract †Abstracts here may not perfectly match originals, for a variety of technical and practical reasons. Some abstacts are truncated for my purposes here, if they are particularly long-winded and unhelpful. I occasionally add clarifying notes. And I make some minor corrections.
BACKGROUND AND METHODS: Bed rest is widely advocated for sciatica, but its effectiveness has not been established. To study the effectiveness of bed rest in patients with a lumbosacral radicular syndrome of sufficient severity to justify treatment with bed rest for two weeks, we randomly assigned 183 subjects to either bed rest or watchful waiting for this period. The primary outcome measures were the investigator's and patient's global assessments of improvement after 2 and 12 weeks, and the secondary outcome measures were changes in functional status and in pain scores (after 2, 3, and 12 weeks), absenteeism from work, and the need for surgical intervention. Neither the investigators who assessed the outcomes nor those involved in data entry and analysis were aware of the patients' treatment assignments.
RESULTS: After two weeks, 64 of the 92 patients in the bed-rest group (70 percent) reported improvement, as compared with 59 of the 91 patients in the control (watchful-waiting) group (65 percent) (adjusted odds ratio for improvement in the bed-rest group, 1.2; 95 percent confidence interval, 0.6 to 2.3). After 12 weeks, 87 percent of the patients in both groups reported improvement. The results of assessments of the intensity of pain, the bothersomeness of symptoms, and functional status revealed no significant differences between the two groups. The extent of absenteeism from work and rates of surgical intervention were similar in the two groups.
CONCLUSIONS: Among patients with symptoms and signs of a lumbosacral radicular syndrome, bed rest is not a more effective therapy than watchful waiting.
This page is part of the PainScience BIBLIOGRAPHY, which contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers & others sources. It’s like a highly specialized blog. A few highlights:
- Topical glyceryl trinitrate (GTN) and eccentric exercises in the treatment of mid-portion achilles tendinopathy (the NEAT trial): a randomised double-blind placebo-controlled trial. Kirwan 2024 Br J Sports Med.
- Placebo analgesia in physical and psychological interventions: Systematic review and meta-analysis of three-armed trials. Hohenschurz-Schmidt 2024 Eur J Pain.
- Recovery trajectories in common musculoskeletal complaints by diagnosis contra prognostic phenotypes. Aasdahl 2021 BMC Musculoskelet Disord.
- Cannabidiol (CBD) products for pain: ineffective, expensive, and with potential harms. Moore 2023 J Pain.
- Moderators of the effect of therapeutic exercise for knee and hip osteoarthritis: a systematic review and individual participant data meta-analysis. Holden 2023 The Lancet Rheumatology.