초음파 치료와 레이저 치료가 아급성 요통에 미치는 영향

Effects of Ultrasound and Laser Therapy in Patients With Sub-Acute Lower Back Pain

This study was designed to determine the efficacy of ultrasound and laser therapy for sub-acute lower back pain. Twenty-seven patients with sub-acute low back pain were recruited, who were randomly as-signed to three groups: Ultrasound group (actual ultrasound, 1.1 ㎒, 1.0 W/ ㎠, duty cycle 100%, 10 min/session, n=9), laser group (actual laser, 904 ㎚, 155 ns, 13.5 W, 12 ㎷, 90 sec/point, n=9)，and control group (placebo ultrasound or placebo laser, n=9). All of treatments inc1uding placebo procedures were ap-plied to patients over a period of 2 weeks, five times a week. Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), Modified Schober’s Test (MST), and Modified Oswestrγ Disability Questionnaire (MODQ) were used by the clinical and functional evaluations before and after intervention. At post-hoc, significant differences were observed in all groups with respect to VAS, MST (p<.05), except MODQ. VAS and MST score were more sig-nificantly improved in the ultrasound group than the laser and control group (p<.0167). However, no sig-nificant difference was present between the laser group and the control group. Therefore, this study re-vealed that ultrasound therapy was effective in pain relief and improvement of lumbar mobility in patients with sub-acute lower back pain. However, laser therapy did not show the effects for sub-acute lower back pain.