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E S E A R C H
Spa Therapies Improve
Chronic Back Pain
People with chronic back
pain showed significant improvement in general pain, back pain,
mood and health satisfaction after three weeks of varying therapies
at a spa resort in Bad Tatzmannsdorf, Austria.
"Contribution of Individual Spa
Therapies in the Treatment of Chronic Pain" was conducted by
Gerhard Strauss-Blasche, Ph.D., Cem Ekmekcioglu, M.D., Gerda Vacariu,
M.D., Herbert Melchart, M.D., Veronika Fialka-Moser, M.D., and Wolfgang
Marktl, M.D.
The study involved 151 subjects with
an average age of 58, all of whom had experienced strong back pain
for at least one year. Participants spent three weeks at the resort
in eastern Austria, where they received two to four spa treatments
per day. The treatments included mud applications, carbon dioxide
baths, massage, exercise, spinal traction, hydrotherapy and electrotherapy.
The spa physician prescribed each subject's
treatment based on individual health status and which therapies
the subject was inclined toward. On average, subjects experienced
about four of the available therapies, some more frequently than
others, for a total of approximately 37 therapy sessions per participant
throughout the three-week stay.
General pain, back pain, negative mood and
health satisfaction were measured on the first and last days of the
study; a follow-up measurement was taken six weeks later. At the end
of the study and at follow-up, a significant improvement was noted
for all four outcomes.
Although little connection could be made
between specific spa treatments and the positive outcome, the spa
therapy as a whole proved successful.
"Except for the electrotherapies
and, to a lesser extent, spinal traction, the treatments used in
the context of spa therapy all have some known physiological and/or
psychological effect," state the study's authors. "Nevertheless,
it was found that the bulk of improvement could not be explained
by the number and type of individual spa therapies the patients
received during their stay."
The authors present several theories
as to why it was the general spa experience, and not the specific
therapies involved, that improved subjects' health and mood. One
is the placebo effect of professional attention and subject involvement,
regardless of the treatment. Also cited was the "structure"
of the spa experience, "where phases of rest and phases of
physiological stimulation are alternated in a stress-free environment."
"The most prominent finding is that
each therapeutic application accounts for only a small percentage
of overall treatment outcome," state the study's authors. "Therefore,
omitting an individual therapy should not effect outcome to any
large extent."
- Source: University
of Vienna Departments of Physiology, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation;
Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Physiological Rhythms Research; and
Kurzentrum Bad Tatzmannsdorf. Authors: Gerhard Strauss-Blasche,
Ph.D., Cem Ekmekcioglu, M.D., Gerda Vacariu, M.D., Herbert Melchart,
M.D., Veronika Fialka-Moser, M.D., and Wolfgang Marktl, M.D. Originally
published in The Clinical Journal of Pain, 2002, Vol. 18, No. 5,
pp. 302-309.
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