South London back pain sufferers set to benefit from major study
A team of doctors, physiotherapists and scientists in South London are setting up an important new study into the widespread condition of low back pain.
The study will investigate the role of stomach and back muscles in low back pain, which causes misery to many thousands of people.
Around 90 people in total will be recruited to take part in the two-year research project, based in the physiotherapy division in the Guy's Campus of King's College, London. The project has been funded by a grant of £125,582 by medical research charity the Arthritis Research Campaign.
Chronic low back pain is regarded as a major problem, personally and socially, and an increasing drain on the nation's resources. Exercises aimed at improving deep trunk muscles in the body are increasingly being prescribed for sufferers, although the relationship between muscles and back pain has yet to be clinically established.
Physiotherapist Iain Beith, who is heading up the study at Guy's, said the overall aim of the study was to identify any differences in the way the stomach and back muscles were controlled in people who suffer from low back pain, and those who don't.
"This may tell us whether the way muscles function contributes to the problem of low back pain," he added.
"Once we know more about this, better exercise regimes can be designed aimed at restoring normal muscle function and overcoming disability."
Three groups of 30 people will be recruited; a group of people with low back pain from a clinic at St Thomas's Hospital; another group of patients with ankylosing spondylitis (a condition which leads to stiffening of the spine, also known as 'poker back') from Guy's and St Thomas's; and a third group of local people in good health.
