Efficacy of Pilate’s Exercise with Postural Advice in the Management of Low Back Pain for Lower Limb Amputee Patients: A Randomised Control Trial

Objective: To observe the effectiveness of Pilate’s exercise, with postural advice to reduce low back pain for lower limb amputee patients. Material and Methods: An assessor-blind, randomised control trial design has been used wherein sixty-two patients were divided into two groups by simple random allocation. The experimental group received the Pilates’ Training Program with postural advice, and the control group received usual care at the prosthetic department. There were thrity-one participants in both groups that completed the study. Both groups attended a 15-minute specialized, supervised session; 5 days a week, for 4 weeks. Outcomes were measured in terms of pain by a numeric pain rating scale and specific function & disability of the lumbo-pelvic region by the Roland-Morris Low Back Pain and Disability Questionnaire. Descriptive (median and inter quartile range, IQR) and inferential statistics (Pearson Chi-square test, Mann-Whitney U test and Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test) were performed to analyse the data through the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), Windows version 25 (IBM, Armonk, NY, USA). Results: Average age of participants was 33 (29.75 to 47.50) years; whereas, the average duration of amputation in the experimental group was 11 (7 to 13) months compared to 8 (6 to 11) months in the control group. Both groups showed significant improvement in terms of pain intensity and functional ability in intergroup analysis (p-value<0.05); additionally, in intra-group analysis participants that received Pilate’s exercise with postural advice had better outcomes than participants who received only postural advice (p-value<0.05). Conclusions: It was concluded that Pilate’s exercise with postural advice is effective in the rehabilitation of patients with lower limb amputee-induced low back pain. Additionally, Pilate’s exercises with postural advice also led to better improvement in mechanical correction of the lumbo pelvic region.