Effect of revulsive compress on low back pain: a randomized controlled trial

Abstract

Naturopathic medicine is a non-invasive and evidence-based system of medicine imparting treatments using natural modalities.This study was conducted to determine the effect of revulsive compress in improving pain, disability and spinal flexibility in patients with low back pain. A total of sixty subjects were recruited after fulfilling the inclusion and exclusion criteria. They were randomly allocated to the case group which received revulsive compress for ten days and the control group, without intervention, put on wait-list. Every subject was assessed for pain, disability and spinal flexibility at baseline and following 10 days. The data were analyzed for the normal distribution using the Kolmogorov Smirnov test. Parametric tests, t-test and paired t-test were applied for sit and reach test as the data measured was normally distributed. Non-parametric tests, ie., Mann-Whitney Test and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were used for VAS and ODI as the data measured with these were non-normally distributed.There was a significant improvement in the sit and reach test (p≤0.004), VAS (p≤0.0001) and ODI (p≤0.0001) in the case group with respect to the control group. The study result suggests that the revulsive compress group showed significance for VAS Score, ODI, & sit and reach test with respect to the control group. Hence, revulsive compress may be an effective hydrotherapeutic treatment for a reduction in pain and disability and in improving the flexibility in low back pain patients.