Therapeutic Exercise Plus Pain Neuroscience Education for Chronic Low Back Pain
CompletedNot applicableNCT07856992
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This study has no listed site in Canada in this snapshot. It is included as part of the worldwide chronic pain corpus.
Brief summary (from the registry)
\### What is this study about? This study looked at whether adding \*\*pain neuroscience education (PNE)\*\* to standard therapeutic exercise helps people with chronic low back pain who are afraid of moving (a condition called \*kinesiophobia\*). \### Why does it matter? Chronic low back pain is the leading cause of disability worldwide. Many people with chronic back pain develop fear of movement, which makes them avoid exercise and can slow down recovery. While exercise is the recommended first-line treatment, fear of movement often reduces how much patients benefit from it. Pain neuroscience education is a talking therapy that helps patients understand that chronic pain is not always a sign of tissue damage - it often involves the nervous system becoming overly sensitive. The idea is that changing how patients think about pain may reduce their fear and help them engage more fully in exercise. \### What did the researchers do? Patients with chronic low back pain and high fear of movement were randomly assigned to two groups * \*\*Group 1:\*\* 8 weeks of therapeutic exercise alone * \*\*Group 2:\*\* 8 weeks of therapeutic exercise \*\*plus\*\* two pain neuroscience education sessions (at the start and at week 4) * Patients were assessed at \*\*baseline, 8 weeks, and 24 weeks\*\* (6-month follow-up) * Measures included: fear of movement (TSK-17), pain intensity (NRS), disability (RMDQ), pain catastrophizing (PCS), and central sensitization symptoms (CSI) * Brain scans (resting-state fMRI) were taken before and after the intervention to explore potential brain-behavior links
Study details
- Official title
- Adjunct Pain Neuroscience Education for Kinesiophobia in Chronic Low Back Pain: a Randomized Controlled Trial With Exploratory Resting-state fMRI
- Conditions
- Interventions
- Behavioral: Therapeutic exercise
- Behavioral: Pain Neuroscience Education
- Sponsor
- Qingdao Municipal Hospital
- Start date
- 2025-01-06
- Primary completion
- 2025-10-15
- Sex
- All
- Age range
- from 18 Years to 65 Years
- Results posted
- No results posted in this snapshot
- Countries
- China
- Total sites listed
- 1
Eligibility criteria
Show eligibility criteria (verbatim from the registry)
Inclusion Criteria: * Aged 18-65 years * Chronic non-specific low back pain (CLBP) lasting ≥3 months * Numerical Rating Scale (NRS) score ≥3 * Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia (TSK-17) score ≥37 * Right-handed * Able to complete all clinical and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) assessments Exclusion Criteria: * Specific low back pain caused by tumor, infection, fracture, or inflammatory disease * Previous lumbar surgery * Severe neurological or psychiatric disorders * Contraindications to MRI * Participation in other structured rehabilitation programs during the study period
Source: ClinicalTrials.gov (US National Library of Medicine), snapshot October 2026. Check the registry for current recruiting status. Record: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT07856992