A protocol for studying the efficacy of the sacroiliac joint mobilization in patients with acute benign musculoskeletal low back pain caused by sacroiliac joint dysfunction syndrome

Musculoskeletal (non-specific) low back pain is a significant public health problem that ranks first in the number of years lost due to persistent ill health. The sacroiliac joint is the direct source of pain in 15-30%. Various techniques of manual therapy are used to treat such cases. Currently, there are just few studies comparing the clinical efficacy of different manual therapy techniques, and their results are contradictory. One of the main reasons is the impossibility of conducting a classical double-blind placebo-controlled randomized trial to evaluate the efficacy of MT techniques due to the difficulty of “blinding” completely the patient and the researcher. Since there are no guidelines on how to conduct an appropriate simulation therapy to guarantee the reliability of the methodology and results of clinical trials, we propose our standardized study protocol to investigate the comparative efficacy of high-velocity low-amplitude thrust mobilization and low-velocity low-amplitude rhythmic mobilization of the sacroiliac joint with active placebo.