Comparing the Effectiveness of Lumbar Stabilization Exercises with General Spinal Exercises in Patients with Postero-lateral Disc Herniations

To compare the effectiveness of lumbar stabilization exercises (LSE) with general spinal exercises (GSE) in patients with postero lateral disc herniations.

The randomized controlled trial was conducted A sample of 50 patients was taken from February 2010 to April 2010; and they were randomly placed either in control or experimental group, 25 patients in each group. The sample was exclusively taken from the Physiotherapy Department of National Hospital and Medical Center DHA Lahore.

The progress of all the patients was measured on a unified scale describing 5 disability variables, pain intensity, walking, standing, sleeping and social activity according to modified Oswestry Scale. All participants performed their particular therapeutic exercise with their regular sessions of physical therapy for 4 weeks. By summing up the total of 5 variables, a total pre-exercise and post exercise score were obtained. This total disability score of the two groups were analyzed statistically and t- test was applied which shows statistically significant results with p = 0.000007.

Hence patients who performed LSE protocols improved significantly better with lower disability scores compared with patients who had GSE protocols.