Introduction: Low back pain (LBP) is one of the most frequently observed disorders of the musculoskeletal system in the modern population. It is suggested that myofascial disorders in the highly innervated thoracolumbar fascia (TLF), reported in patients with LBP, may be an underlying cause of the ailment. Research also confirms that patients with LBP demonstrate poorer postural stability compared with individuals without the condition. Myofascial release techniques (MFR) are additional therapeutic options that complement existing therapies and help provide a more holistic treatment for chronic LBP (CLBP).
Objective: Evaluation of changes in postural stability following one MFR intervention applied to CLBP subjects immediately after manual therapy and after a month. It was hypothesized that postural stability is going to aggravate immediately after the MFR intervention and improve one month after treatment compared with the baseline results before the treatment.
Methods: 113 patients with CLBP participated in a randomized-controlled trial. The experimental group (n = 59) received one MFR intervention, whereas the control group (n = 54) did not receive any therapeutic intervention. Posturography was performed to determine experimental group's immediate response to the therapy and to evaluate the experimental and control groups' responses to the therapy one month after the intervention.
Results: Only 2 out of 12 comparisons of stabilometric parameters demonstrated reliable effects that are in line with our research hypotheses. Even though both comparisons were observed for therapy outcomes within the experimental group, no reliable differences between the groups were found.
Conclusions: A single MFR treatment in the TLF did not affect postural stability in CLBP patients in the experimental group. Further studies are needed to extend the findings by performing a series of holistic MFR treatments applied to a larger area of the body surface that would induce more general tissue changes and thus having a greater impact on postural stability.
Keywords: low back pain; myofascial release; postural stability.