The Effect of Eight Weeks of Specialized Yoga Exercises on The Amount of Pain, Range of Motion and Functional Capacity in Women With Non-Specific Chronic Back Pain

Chronic back pain is one of the most common chronic pains which various methods have been proposed to manage and reduce pain, including participating in sports rehabilitation programs. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of specialized yoga exercises on pain, functional capacity and range of motion of women with non-specific chronic back pain.

The statistical sample was 50 women suffering from non-specific chronic low back pain in Amol city, who were selected by available sampling method and randomly assigned to two experimental groups (25 people) and control group (25 people). The tools used in this research were McGill Pain Questionnaire, 6-minute fast walking functional test and waist flexion range measurement by Kinovea software before and 48 hours after the last session of yoga exercises. The experimental group performed specialized yoga exercises for 24 sessions of 60 minutes. The research design was a pre-test-post-test with a control group, and univariate covariance analysis (ANCOA) was used to analyze the data.

The obtained results showed that this yoga training program can reduce the pain of women with chronic low back pain (p≤ 0.05) and improve functional capacity (p ≤ 0.001) and increase the range of motion of the back (p ≤ 0.001).

Due to the simultaneous use of mental and strengthening exercises, specialized yoga exercises can improve psychological factors such as fear of movement, fear of pain, and subsequently improve the range of motion of the back and improve the functional capacity of patients.