Supervised physical therapy versus unsupervised exercise for patients with lumbar spinal stenosis: 1-year follow-up of a randomized controlled trial

Abstract

Objective: To compare the 1-year outcomes of patients with lumbar spinal stenosis treated with supervised physical therapy or unsupervised exercise. Design: A single-center randomized controlled trial with concealed allocation, blinded assessor and intention-to-treat analysis. Setting: Spine care center. Subjects: A total of 86 patients presenting with symptoms of neurogenic claudication caused by lumbar spinal stenosis. Interventions: The physical therapy group received supervised physical therapy sessions twice a week for 6 weeks and home exercise program. The home exercise group received 6-week home exercise program only. Main measures: The primary outcome was symptom severity on the Zurich claudication questionnaire at 1 year. Secondary outcomes included physical function, pain, health-related quality of life and the surgery rate after 1 year. Results: At 1 year, more patients in the physical therapy group than in the home exercise group achieved minimum clinically important differences in Zurich claudication questionnaire symptom severity (60.5% vs 32.6%; adjusted odds ratio [AOR] 4.3, [95% CI [1.5–12.3], P = 0.01); Zurich claudication questionnaire physical function (55.8% vs 32.6%; AOR 3.0 [1.1–8.1], P = 0.03); SF-36 bodily pain (48.8% vs 25.6%; AOR 2.8 [1.1–7.3], P = 0.03), and SF-36 general health (20.9% vs 7.0%; AOR 6.1 [1.1–33.0], P = 0.04). The surgery rate at 1 year was lower in the physical therapy than in the home exercise group (7.0% vs 23.3%; AOR 0.2 [0.04–0.9] P = 0.04). Conclusions: Supervised physical therapy produced greater improvements in symptom severity and physical function than unsupervised exercise and was associated with lower likelihood of receiving surgery within 1 year.