Yoga Banishes Back Pain
When it comes to easing chronic low back pain in minority populations, yoga may make for a sound alternative to standard treatment. That’s the key finding from a recent study of 30 back-pain-plagued adults, all of whom were recruited from community health centers that serve racially diverse, low-income neighborhoods. Use of yoga and other complementary therapies for low back pain is fairly uncommon among minorities and low-income individuals, possibly due to lack of access to such treatments, according to the study’s authors.
For 12 weeks, participants either took part in weekly, 75-minute yoga classes (focusing on meditation and breathing in addition to yoga poses) or received standard treatment for their back pain. Members of the yoga group were also given yoga CDs, mats, and props in order to keep up a daily yoga practice at home.
By the study’s end, pain had decreased by one-third among those practicing yoga (compared to just 5 percent in the participants receiving standard care). What’s more, pain medication use in the yoga group dropped by 80 percent, but remained the same among the other study members.
Yoga Banishes Back Pain originally appeared on About.com Alternative Medicine on Friday, November 20th, 2009 at 06:00:18.