As well as looking at various pieces of physiotherapy research in this blog I also like occasionally to have a look at any interesting or helpful case studies about past and current patients of our physiotherapy service. In this blog I thought we could look at how our home visit physiotherapy service helped a 70 year old man relieve and learn how to manage his long standing and chronic lower back pain.

As we have looked at in other blogs low back pain is one of the most common ailments and is responsible for a huge amount of problems and disability in the UK and certainly as physiotherapists we see a large number of patients with low back pain. In this case our patient was (and still is!) a 70 year old man. He had been living with ongoing low back pain for a very long time and had seen numerous therapists including other physiotherapists, chiropractors and osteopaths. He found that he was incredibly stiff and sore in the morning and that any form of bending or too much sitting would give him and extremely sore and painful lower back. On assessment it was clear that he was protecting his back and was very worried that movement would irritate things and also that he did not have a good exercise and stretching routine. Also it was clear after the assessment that his main pain driver seemed to be excessive sitting and general inactivity. So we agreed a plan that included several components: firstly to work on a stretching and exercise routine that would improve his range of motion, reduce his general feeling of stiffness and improve his confidence in the strength of his back. Secondly to use appropriate manual therapy including soft tissue massage and spinal mobilisations to reduce the tension in his muscles and improve the movement in his spine. After a few weeks of regular sessions he was feeling much better, his general pain levels were much lower, his range of motion had increased and he felt that he had a much better idea of how to manage his low back pain. Also he was following a stretching and exercise routine that was clearly helping.

At this point we agreed that he would still benefit from physiotherapy but that we needed to space the sessions out more as he now no longer needed such a high level of input. We agreed to see him every 2 weeks and that is how we have continued with regular reviews to see if he still needs physiotherapy. The patient continues to feel a benefit from having regular physiotherapy and although he still gets some occasional low back grumbles these are well managed, only intermittent and do not interfere with his day to day life.

Overall a success for ThreeSpires Physiotherapy and our home visit physiotherapy service. Low back pain can be extremely debilitating and fatiguing and whenever we are able to help someone out of chronic low back pain with physiotherapy I always feel very proud.

For anyone reading: we are a home visit physiotherapy service, based in Lichfield but serving anywhere within a 20 minute drive including areas such as Sutton Coldfield, Tamworth, Cannock, Burton and Rugeley. We offer a wide range of services including paediatric physiotherapy, post-operative rehabilitation, neurological physiotherapy and neck and back pain relief. If you need further information or would like to book an appointment we can be contacted on 0788 428 1623 or via enquiries@threespiresphysiotherapy.co.uk