Physical therapy interventions for degenerative lumbar spinal stenosis: a systematic review

This report has been verified by one or more authors of the original publication.

10 studies (5 RCTs, 2 controlled trials, 2 mixed-design studies, and 1 longitudinal cohort study) assessing the effectiveness of physical therapy interventions in patients with lumbar spinal stenosis were included in this review. The results from this study indicated that there is moderate-quality evidence suggesting pain and disability (but not walking distance) is significantly better in patients treated surgically at 2 years compared to those treated with physical therapy. The remaining conclusions were based on low-quality evidence and thus the effectiveness of physical therapy in the treatment of lumbar spinal stenosis remains uncertain.