There are many exercises that are beneficial to treating back pain and sciatica. One new exercise that is beneficial to treating chronic low back pain is called therapeutic climbing. According to a recent study published in Spine magazine therapeutic climbing is a new and superior treatment for low chronic back pain. Health Day News states that this exercise improves perceived health and physical functioning for people who are suffering.
There are many other forms of treatment for back pain and sciatica, but researchers wanted to compare the effects of therapeutic climbing to find out if it compared to other successful methods. According to an article posted today on the DoctorsLounge.com “Kai Engbert, Ph.D., and Michaela Weber, from the Technical University Munich in Germany, investigated the physical and psychological effects of therapeutic climbing, and assessed whether it was comparable or superior to other forms of exercise for patients with chronic low back pain. A cohort of 28 patients underwent a four-week therapeutic climbing or standard exercise regime, including four guided training sessions per week. Patients completed questionnaires before and after the program assessing their physical and mental well-being.
The investigators found that there was no difference before or after the treatments in pain-related disability measured by the Hannover Functional Ability Questionnaire. For the Short Form-36 (SF-36), significant improvements were seen in two of eight subscales for therapeutic climbing, and in one subscale for standard exercise. According to the SF-36 physical functioning and general health perception subscales, significantly larger improvements were seen in the therapeutic climbing group.”
There findings has lead them to the conclusion that therapeutic climbing for low back pain is just as good if not better than standard exercise.
