Novel Yoga Clothing Used in Physical Therapy in the Reduction of Low Back Pain - A Pilot Study

Research Objectives: To discover if haptic feedback improves exercise form and frequency to assist with decreasing low back pain

Design: Within subject design with four weekly PT evaluations and daily online self-reports for three weeks

Setting: Private physical therapy practice

Participants: Self-reported low back pain participants were recruited through various advertising forums. The Principal Investigator performed the selection process with a telephone call to screen out those who may have frank neurological symptoms. Eight selected participants received weekly Physical Therapy evaluations for four weeks to screen for frank neurological signs. 1 female 35-45 y.o,, 1 female 46-55 y.o., 1 female and 1 male 56-65 y.o., and 2 female and 1 male 66-75 y.o. One subject withdrew early on due to lack of interest.

Interventions: Four weekly Physical Therapy evaluations to rule out development of frank neurological signs and symptoms along with height and weight and, three weeks performing Chair Pose with Nadi X, 3 times per day. At day’s end, participants completed an online perception form to report their Numeric Pain Rating, trunk active range of motion, and gather binary posture (either attaining Chair pose or not) results from the Nadi X system.

Main Outcome Measures: Oswestry Low Back Pain Scale and Nadi X Pose Validation Step

Results: The average Oswestry score demonstrated a decrease of 16% and average pose accuracy was 8.19/10 across all 7 participants from Session 1 to Session 4.

Conclusions: A reduction in Oswestry scores and the participants’ improved perception of Chair pose attainment, established a connection between the internal technology of the Nadi X and lower Oswestry scores. This suggests the usefulness of this haptic feedback and posture analysis in a Physical Therapy regimen to help reduce lower back pain. Further research should include more participants plus a control group, adding more trunk movement poses, and prolonged study time frame.

Author(s) Disclosures: One author has a potential conflict of interest to report and the other none.