Muscle loss in elderly patients - prevention effects of a multimodal therapy program for low back pain

Abstract

Muscle loss with an increasing loss of muscle mass, muscle strength and muscle function is a disease in elderly individuals. Along with the severity of muscle loss, an increased frailty is evident. The consequences of an increased frailty are age-related reduced resilience and reduced strength conditions, and following this substantial loss of quality of life. The onset and progression of aging processes can be positively influenced by physical training, which helps to prevent the decline in neuromuscular capacity. There is consensus that hypertrophy training focusing on the training of situation specific movement tasks of the individual muscle groups is recommended. In this study we demonstrated that multimodal therapy is an efficient alternative intervention to strengthen the back muscles and by this to increase muscle growth in the areas of extension and flexion as well as lateralization and rotation on both sides. 52 patients aged between 50 and 65 with a main diagnosis of back disease were examined prospective. They completed a 3-week inpatient multimodal therapy program. Effects of the program were assessed by applying two isometric strength measurements of the back muscles. Baseline measurement (T0) was done on the first day of the program and post measurement (T1) on the last day of therapy. The results were described by means of SPSS as mean (M) and standard deviation (SD). The normal distribution was verified (Kolmogorov-Smirnov test). Data indicates that there are significant improvements in extension force, right lateral and right rotation force. Strength gains in flexion, left lateral and left rotation could also be demonstrated, but compared to the other three directions with reduced strength. It could be shown that even a multimodal therapy program leads to an increase in strength. Since pure hypertrophy training is a great challenge, especially for the elderly, the multimodal therapy concepts promising approach to facilitate the often difficult start to the treatment of muscle loss. The significant higher power increase concerning extension, rotation and lateralization on the right side compared to the left side is remarkable. Here further research is needed to obtain explanations. A significant weakness of the study is the lack of a control group. Further research with more sophisticated study designs (e.g. RCT) is necessary in order to learn more about this alternative intervention to treat muscle loss.