Brief psychosocial education, not core stabilization, reduced incidence of low back pain: results from the Prevention of Low Back Pain in the Military (POLM) cluster randomized trial

Core stabilization has been advocated as preventative, but offered no such benefit when compared to traditional lumbar exercise in this trial. Instead, a brief psychosocial education program that reduced fear and threat of low back pain decreased incidence of low back pain resulting in seeking of health care. Since this trial was conducted in a military setting future studies are necessary to determine if these findings can be translated into civilian populations. George SZ, Childs JD, Teyhen DS, Wu SS, Wright AC, Dugan JL, Robinson ME. BMC Med. 2011 Nov 29;9(1):128. [Epub ahead of print] PMID: 22126534 PDF