1MPT Student, Ashok and Rita Patel Institute of Physiotherapy, Gujarat, India
2Charotar University of Science and Technology, Changa, Anand, Gujarat, India
Online published on 14 October, 2021.
Low Back Pain (LBP) is a worldwide health problem with life prevalence of approximately 80%, a global point prevalence of 9.4%. Clinical decision making is dependent, cognitive process or critical thinking used in the evaluation and management of a patient. Most errors in clinical reasoning are due to frailty of human thinking under conditions of complexity and uncertainty.
To estimate clinical decision errors in physiotherapeutic management of low back pain.
In this cross-sectional study we have chosen 50 clinical decisions of physiotherapist related to management of LBP. In order to gather the information, the questionnaire included general demographics and through observation treatment given for LBP patient was reported. We have compared the data with standard evidencebased guidelines for management of LBP.
Most commonly used electrotherapeutic modalities were SWD (64%) and TENS (44%). However, the guideline suggests that the passive modalities are not recommended. As a part of exercises for managing low back pain were lumbar extension exercises (60%) followed by static abdominal exercise (46%) and bridging but guideline suggest that strengthening exercises is no more effective than other types of exercises. For manual therapy, a guideline suggests that it is used adjunct to treatment and our data suggest that (10%) of the therapists were giving the manual therapy for management of low back pain.
This study has identified a high use of passive modalities along with some specific exercise for management of LBP that is not in line with evidence-based management.
Low back pain, Clinical decision errors, Physiotherapy management
