Observational studyPhysical therapy2015
Patient-reported outcomes associated with use of physical therapist services by older adults with a new visit for back pain.
Observational study in Physical therapy, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 10 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pain-Reducing Effects of Physical Therapist-Delivered Interventions: A Systematic Review of Randomized Trials Among Older Adults With Dementia.Journal of geriatric physical therapy (2001)Pooled it
- What do older adults want from spine care?Brain & spine · 2024Article
- Using Pain Medication Intensity to Stratify Back Pain Among Older Adults.Pain medicine (Malden, Mass.) · 2019Article
- Associations Between Relative Value Units and Patient-Reported Back Pain and Disability.Gerontology & geriatric medicineArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 5 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundAmong older adults, it is not clear how different types or amounts of physical therapy may be associated with improvements in back pain and function.
objectiveThe study objective was to investigate the association between types or amounts of physical therapist services and 1-year outcomes among older adults with back pain.
designThis was a prospective cohort study.
methodsA total of 3,771 older adults who were enrolled in a cohort study and who had a new primary care visit for back pain participated. Physical therapy use was ascertained from electronic health records. The following patient-reported outcomes were collected over 12 months: back-related disability (Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire) and back and leg pain intensity (11-point numerical rating scale). Marginal structural models were used to estimate average effects of different amounts of physical therapy use on disability and pain for all types of physical therapy and for active, passive, and manual physical therapy.
resultsA total of 1,285 participants (34.1%) received some physical therapy. There was no statistically significant gradient in relationships between physical therapy use and back-related disability score. The use of passive or manual therapy was not consistently associated with pain outcomes. Higher amounts of active physical therapy were associated with decreased back and leg pain and increased odds of clinically meaningful improvements in back and leg pain relative to results obtained with no active physical therapy. LIMITATIONS: The fact that few participants had high amounts of physical therapy use limited precision and the ability to test for nonlinear relationships for the amount of use.
conclusionsHigher amounts of active physical therapy were most consistently related to the greatest improvements in pain intensity; however, as with all observational studies, the results must be interpreted with caution.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.