Pain neuroscience education is not superior to spinal physiology and ergonomics education within a short multidisciplinary rehabilitation program: A randomized controlled trial
One page on PainSci cites Adenis 2024: Can you attack back pain with knowledge bombs?
PainSci commentary on Adenis 2024: ?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.
This trial compared pain neuroscience education (PNE) to more conventional “back school” education, combining each with a multidisciplinary rehab program, in 88 adults with chronic back pain. Although only one-week long, the interventions were intensive. The PNE dosage was 8 half-hour sessions. There was no statistical difference between the groups for any outcome. The major weakness of the trial was probably that it’s probably not ideal to combine PNE with MRP, although arguably the trial simply duplicates an unavoidable combination in the real world.
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.
INTRODUCTION: There is little evidence to suggest that one educational intervention is superior to another when associated with a rehabilitation program in the management of persistent low back pain. The objective of the present study was to compare pain neuroscience education with spine physiology and ergonomics education as part of a one-week multidisciplinary rehabilitation program.
METHOD: We conducted a randomized, controlled trial among patients having experienced persistent low back pain for at least 1 year. The patients participated in a one-week multidisciplinary rehabilitation program with an educational component. The members of the experimental and control groups received pain neuroscience education and spine physiology and ergonomics education, respectively. Outcomes were assessed before the program (day 0), immediately afterwards (day 5), and on day 90 after the start of the program. The primary outcome measure was functional disability on day 90.
RESULTS: A total of 88 patients were randomized. On day 90, a statistically significant mean [95% confidence interval] decrease in the level of disability was observed in the experimental (PNE) group (-3.4 [-5.0 to -1.8]). The mean [95%CI] difference versus the control group (-1.7 [-4.0 to 0.5]) was not statistically significant (p = 0.12). There were no statistically significant intergroup differences in the secondary outcome measures.
CONCLUSION: There appears to be no advantage in replacing a conventional, non-neuroscientific educational program (based on spinal physiology and ergonomics) with a pain neuroscience education program as part of a one-week multidisciplinary rehabilitation program. Further research is needed to identify patients who will respond better to a pain neuroscience education module as part of a personalized care program.
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:
- 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.
- Inciting events associated with lumbar disc herniation. Suri 2010 Spine J.