Uses of heat wrap therapy for the relief of patients acute low back pain

Acute low back pain is one of the most prevalent diseases which more than 90% of the adults experience at least once during lifetime. The present study was conducted to determine the efficacy of duration of hot water bag usageon pain relief in in the patients with acute low back pain. This clinical trial study was conducted on 20- to 50-year-old patients referring Orthopedic Clinic of Ayatollah Kashani Hospital, Shahrekord in 2012-2013. In this study, 60patients with acute low back pain were enrolled per convenience sampling; of these patients, two were excluded from the study because of refusal to continue the treatment. Finally the intervention was conducted on 58 patients who were assigned randomly into two groups (intervention, under treatment with hot water bag accompanied with routine treatment [naproxen] and control, under treatment with routine treatment alone) after homogenization. All patients were examined on first, third, eighth, and 15th days and the patient's pain was measured per McGill Pain Questionnaire and registered. The data were analyzed by SPSS 17 software using descriptive statistics, paired t-test, ANOVA, and chi-square at significance level of p< 0.05. In this study, 52% of the patients were female and 48% were male with mean age of 34 years. The findings indicated that pain intensity was significantly lower in the 15th day examination compared to the seventh and third day examinations in the group under treatment with hot water bag (P≤0.02). The overall mean score of pain in the first and 15th day examinations was respectively 12.70 and 0.75 in the intervention group and 12.96 and 5.58 in the control group. The obtained results indicate that continuous usage of hot water bag along with sedative medications could cause pain to be relieved much higher compared to taking medications alone (control) in the patients suffering from acute low back pain.