Around 80% of the Australian population will at some point in their lives experience lower back pain, around 15% of these go on to become chronic sufferers. Something that is even more alarming is both the direct and indirect cost of lower back pain on our economy. In Australia during 2003, it was estimated that the direct cost of lower back pain was around $1.09 Billion, while this may look like a large amount it is nothing compared with the indirect costs that totaled approximately $9.17 Billion dollars (Walker et al 2003).
The best available evidence to-date suggests that the best long-term outcome for chronic lower back pain is achieved with a combination of both manual hands on therapy combined with exercise. Recent studies have also shown that patients with lower back pain have altered core muscle control, and over active global muscle systems. What does this all mean?
If you have lower back pain, the altered function of these muscles does not allowed your spine to move in a protected and stabilised manner. Pilates is an intermediate form of exercise that allows us to retrain these core muscles and better protect our spine. More and more evidence is becoming readily available about the effectiveness of Pilates and the positive outcomes for patients. This combined with hands on therapy is proving to be popular for people suffering from chronic lower back pain with pleasing results.