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Time of India
4 days ago
- Health
- Time of India
Can a simple mental shift cure chronic back pain? New scientific study reveals breakthrough in pain relief
What Is CFT and Why Does It Work? You Might Also Like: Walking can relieve your lower back pain, study reveals. But there is a catch Numbers That Matter: Backed by Evidence CFT was more effective than usual care in reducing pain and disability even three years after treatment. Adding biofeedback showed no significant advantage, suggesting that the core value lies in the cognitive approach itself. Participants reported a marked improvement in quality of life and physical activity. You Might Also Like: Back pain is the new pandemic: What's really causing it and 4 moves to get over It The Human Side of Healing A Future Without Pills? In a world saturated with prescriptions, surgeries, and temporary fixes for chronic back pain , a groundbreaking new study is challenging the status quo. Researchers from Australia are offering an unexpected and transformative perspective: the key to long-term relief might be as simple—and as complex—as retraining the popping pills and resigning yourself to lifelong discomfort. According to a report from the Daily Mail, a recent clinical trial led by Macquarie University in Sydney has found that Cognitive Functional Therapy (CFT)—a psychologically informed treatment that rewires the way patients perceive and respond to pain—can reduce disability and pain intensity for up to three in The Lancet Rheumatology, this large-scale study is turning heads in the medical community and sparking conversations about a new, holistic path to Functional Therapy blends psychological insights with physical rehabilitation. It focuses on how thoughts, emotions, and behaviors influence pain and mobility. Unlike traditional care—which often centers on medication or physical adjustments—CFT guides patients to understand their pain triggers, manage fear around movement, and reshape limiting beliefs about their in the study received seven CFT sessions over 12 weeks, along with a follow-up booster session. They were encouraged to gradually reintroduce activities they had long avoided due to fear of pain—restoring confidence as well as trial involved more than 1,000 participants suffering from chronic lower back pain. Three groups were compared: one received CFT, another received CFT plus biofeedback (a technique to control involuntary body functions), and the third group continued with "usual care," such as painkillers and general practitioner results were telling:Researchers called CFT a "high-value, low-risk" intervention with the potential to revolutionize the way we manage chronic up these promising findings, a systematic review and meta-analysis published in the Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Journal by Oxford Academic concluded that CFT offers moderate to high certainty of long-term review examined multiple trials and emphasized that CFT outperformed traditional therapies such as manual therapy, exercise, and education in reducing disability and improving self-efficacy. While results varied based on clinician experience and training, the overall trend pointed to CFT's effectiveness as a sustainable, cost-efficient treatment makes this discovery stand out isn't just the data—it's the philosophy. Instead of seeing chronic back pain purely as a mechanical or biomedical problem, CFT embraces the biopsychosocial model , which recognizes the interplay between mind and millions who feel stuck in a cycle of medication and immobility, this therapy offers hope. It empowers patients not to fight their pain, but to understand and work with it—freeing them from fear, and in many cases, freeing them from pain pain is the leading cause of disability worldwide, with millions affected each year. In the UK alone, nearly 9 million people live with back pain, according to Arthritis Research UK. Traditional treatments often offer only short-term relief and come with a host of side effects or introduction of CFT could change that narrative. By shifting the focus from short-term symptom management to long-term self-management, this approach could reduce the healthcare burden while giving patients their lives further studies are needed to refine and scale the therapy—especially ensuring consistent training standards for practitioners—CFT is already being hailed as a paradigm shift in pain management
Indian Express
4 days ago
- Health
- Indian Express
Can low back pain be an easy fix? Lancet study finds a long-term therapy that gets you moving
Injury, strain, overwork, stress and fatigue led to crippling low back pain for Susan (name changed). 'Life was on hold' for Ann (name changed), who admits that her mindset 'My back is damaged and needs fixing, but there are no answers' led to a loss of confidence. These are some of the views from patients who were part of the RESTORE trial where they describe their journey and how cognitive functional therapy (CFT) helped them gain control over their bodies, pain and face other fears. The latest study, published in 'The Lancet Rheumatology,' is significant because it establishes long-term effects of this therapy on people living with back pain. A previous study published in The Lancet found that CFT was more effective than usual care in improving physical activity among individuals with low back pain for up to a year. The current trial is the first to show that these effects can hold up to three years. It focusses on helping individuals understand their pain experience, modify unhelpful beliefs and behaviour, eliminate the fear that movement is damaging the back further and develop strategies to manage their pain and improve function. 'CFT is a type of psychotherapy and findings of the trial show that long-term benefits can be achieved by self-management skills, pain control strategies and confidence to engage in valued activities apart from adopting a healthier lifestyle,' Prof Mark Hancock from the Spinal Pain Research Centre, Department of Health Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, said. Dr Anand Gangwal, associate professor, Sancheti College of Physiotherapy, Pune, says self-management skills are extremely important in case of gradual onset pain, especially low back pain and neck pain. 'This kind of pain develops with micro trauma of the tissue due to our lifestyle and lack of correct posture and exercises. Medically we can't restore the damaged tissues to their original condition, especially as we get older. But we can control and reduce the microtrauma by lifestyle modification. This will help in reducing the rate of degeneration,' he says. A key component is awareness of what exactly triggers/worsens their pain. That knowledge alone will help patients refrain/modify the activities. 'Along with this a physiotherapist should help in strengthening the supporting structures, so that patients can perform their activities of daily living pain-free. Mental stress, busy schedules, poor nutrition and poor body composition can further worsen chronic pain. All these factors need to be addressed,' Dr Gangwal argues. Dr Mayur Kardile, consulting spine surgeon, Jehangir Hospital, Pune, has seen patients with low back pain, who are afraid of any movement that causes pain or aggravates it. That kind of fear leads to inactivity and can worsen the pain worse over time. 'The patient gets into a negative feedback loop and this creates a cycle that's hard to break. With CFT, patients are progressively challenged to undergo better exercises, slowly and safely guided to move again and face the things they've been avoiding,' he adds. This included 492 patients with chronic low back pain in Australia, who were randomly assigned to receive eight treatment sessions of usual care, CFT, or CFT plus biofeedback (a technique using sensors to measure body functions such as heart rate and enable the patient to modify them). Those who received CFT and CFT plus biofeedback saw improvements in their physical activity participation over usual care. Anuradha Mascarenhas is a journalist with The Indian Express and is based in Pune. A senior editor, Anuradha writes on health, research developments in the field of science and environment and takes keen interest in covering women's issues. With a career spanning over 25 years, Anuradha has also led teams and often coordinated the edition. ... Read More
The Independent
4 days ago
- Health
- The Independent
Just one course of psychotherapy can ease back pain for years, study finds
A single course of psychotherapy can provide relief for years to people suffering from debilitating back pain, according to a new study. The research, published in The Lancet Rheumatology, shows that cognitive functional therapy, CFT, can ease low back pain for at least three years. Low back pain is a chronic condition and one of the leading causes of disability worldwide, marked by unpredictable recurrences and pain flare-ups. Although it affects over 600 million people worldwide, and is projected to impact around 840 million by 2050, most treatments only yield small to moderate improvement. CFT is currently the first line of treatment for chronic low back pain but how effective and lasting its benefits are isn't well understood. CFT is an individualised approach that seeks to alter a patient's relationship with their chronic pain and works by targeting unhelpful cognitions, emotions, and behaviours that contribute to pain and disability. The latest study shows that CFT effectively improves physical activity participation among those with low back pain for up to three years. In the study, scientists assessed data from about 500 patients with chronic low back pain in Australia who were randomly assigned to receive eight treatment sessions of usual care, CFT, or CFT plus biofeedback, a technique that uses sensors to measure body functions such as heart rate and enable the patient to modify them. Usual care was any treatment recommended to patients by healthcare providers, including painkillers, physical therapy or massage. The study showed that patients who received CFT and CFT plus biofeedback saw improvements in their physical activity participation over usual care. The difference between those receiving CFT only and CFT plus biofeedback at three years was found to be small and not significant. People with CFT could change their mindset about pain and self-manage through movement patterns and lifestyle improvements, the study found. Based on the findings, researchers say CFT has long-term benefits on physical activity for those with low back pain, providing an opportunity to ease discomfort if the intervention can be widely implemented. 'CFT can produce large and sustained improvements for people with chronic disabling low back pain at considerably lower societal cost than that of usual care,' the study noted. Researchers call for scaling up of clinician training for greater accessibility and widespread implementation of CFT.
5 days ago
- Health
New personalized therapy may provide long-term relief for chronic back pain, study finds
A new treatment called cognitive functional therapy, or CFT, may provide long-lasting relief for people with chronic lower back pain, a condition that the Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention says affects one in five U.S. adults. Cognitive functional therapy differs from standard physical therapy, according to the results from the RESTORE trial, published today in The Lancet Rheumatology. It helps people understand their pain, overcome fear of movement, and rebuild confidence through tailored physical activity and lifestyle coaching, according to the study. Researchers at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, and Perth, Australia's Curtin University followed over 300 adults with chronic lower back pain for three years across 20 physical therapy clinics in Australia. Study participants reported fewer pain symptoms at the end of the study after participating in just eight CFT sessions over six months, compared to those who used some other type of therapy to manage their back pain. 'Cognitive functional therapy is putting the patient in charge, addressing the person very holistically and looking at all the factors that are relevant,' said Dr. Mark Hancock, lead author of the study and professor of physiotherapy at Macquarie University. Unlike many conventional treatments, CFT doesn't focus on short-term symptom relief. Instead, it teaches patients to reframe how they think about pain, and to shift away from protective or fear-driven behaviors and build self-management skills that ideally last long after the sessions end. "Pain patients often have kinesiophobia, where the thought of being in pain and the fear of what it might do to them results in them moving less. But a part of what makes back pain worse is that thought process, so I often tell my patients, 'if you don't use it, you'll lose it,'" said Dr. Rohan Jotwani, an interventional pain specialist and anesthesiologist at Och Spine at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Weill Cornell Medicine. CFT doesn't involve pills or surgery but can be used alongside other treatments, the study says. While it can be used on its own, it also complements other approaches by helping patients build the skills and confidence to stay active and engaged in daily life, Hancock explained. 'There's something happening at a deeper level related to how patients appreciate and process their pain that's changing, and those skills over time are helping patients feel better even when the therapy ends,' said Jotwani. The treatment worked across a broad range of patients, according to the study, including with participants that had been living with disabling back pain for years and many had tried multiple treatments without success. Even in this group, a relatively short course of CFT led to meaningful, lasting improvements. The researchers said the key is not just what's done during the sessions but the shift in the participant's mindset that it creates, giving people tools to manage flare-ups, move with less fear and regain more control over their daily lives. The researchers noted some limitations to their study, including that some of the participants dropped out before it was complete. Additionally, all of the subjects were Australian, so it's unclear whether Americans would respond as positively to CFT. Jotwani said he finds the results promising, especially for patients who haven't found relief through conventional treatments. 'There's not many things that we can say that gives patients three years of relief after an intervention … so these results are quite encouraging,' he said.
Time of India
16-06-2025
- Health
- Time of India
Simply walking 100 minutes a day can reduce the risk of back pain, a study finds
Chronic low back pain can be the result of a strain in the muscles or tendons in the back, injuries or fractures, curvature of the spine or heavy indulgence in work or sports. According to a published in The Lancet Rheumatology, it is the leading cause of disability globally. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now In the US, back pain is the leading cause of disability, estimating about 80% of people will experience the problem at least once in their lifetimes. According to a 2022 , 8.2% of American adults have chronic severe back pain. An innovative study Image credits: Getty Images According to a new published in the JAMA Network Open journal, walking 100 minutes a day can reduce the risk of chronic low back pain by 23%. According to Rayane Haddadj, a doctoral candidate in the department of public health and nursing at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and the lead study author, 'This is an important finding because walking is a simple, low cost, and accessible activity that can be promoted widely to reduce the burden of low back pain.' An estimated 600 million people worldwide experience low back pain, which is considered the leading cause of disability, said physiotherapist Dr Natasha Pocovi, a postdoctoral research fellow in health sciences at Macquarie University in Sydney to CNN Health. It is predicted by the that by 2050, 843 million people are projected to suffer from the problem. And yet prevention of low back pain is often overlooked in research and clinical practice, added Pocovi. The shocking results The study results state that there is a possibility of using physical activity as a form of prevention. The research also "suggests that we don't need to complicate our exercise routines to protect ourselves against chronic low back pain.' The ideal solution Image credits: Getty Images To analyse the connection between walking and back pain prevention, the team of researchers analysed data from more than 11,000 participants between the ages of 20 and older from the Trøndelag Health, or HUNT, Study in Norway. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Between 2017 and 2019, HUNT researchers asked participants to wear accelerometers for seven days to track their walking patterns. They then followed up from 2021 and 2023 and questioned if participants experienced back pain, as per a new study. The people were divided into four groups according to the time they walked: less than 78 minutes a day, 78-100 minutes a day, 101-124 minutes and more than 125 minutes. As the amount of daily walking increased, so did the risk of chronic low back pain, revealed the findings. Additionally, moderate or brisk walking was more protective than a slow pace, said Pocovi. 'Start with short walking sessions, either by planning specific walks or finding small ways to integrate a brief stroll into your daily routine,' she said. 'The key is to gradually increase your walking in a sustainable and enjoyable way,' she said in an email. 'Additionally, it can be helpful to have a friend, partner, or colleague join you for walks to keep yourself motivated and accountable.'
