EFFECTIVENESS OF QIGONG AND TAICHI EXERCISES IN CHRONIC NON MALIGNANT SPINAL PAIN

S. Sotiropoulos¹, G. Koumroglou¹, K. Georgiou¹, M. Papandreou¹, A. Mavrogenis², G. Georgoudis¹

¹University of West Attica, Physiotherapy, Athens, Greece, ²National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Medicine, Athens, Greece

Background: The most common musculoskeletal cause of pain is from the spine and usually from the lumbar and the cervical spine. It has been linked with increased direct and indirect costs in health systems and can cause severe disabilities to patients. A number of anatomical structures have been identified as possible causes of spinal pain. However, in many cases no specific structure can be identified as the major source of pain, which is an indicator of the difficulties clinicians face treating spinal pathologies. Exercise has proven to be effective in alleviating spinal pain, improving quality of life as well as psychosocial factors that influence the disease. Qigong and Taichi exercises are both exercise routines that have been adopted in the Western World as treatments for spinal conditions.

Purpose: We aimed to investigate the effectiveness of Qigong and TaiChi as treatment techniques for spinal pain. Furthermore, we aimed to investigate their effectiveness in improving disability and psychosocial factors linked to spinal pain.

Methods: This systematic review was formulated based on and adhering to the PRISMA checklist. Specific inclusion and exclusion criteria were used that the selected studies would have to meet, to be included. In this Review Randomised Control Trials whose population suffered from any cause of non malignant spinal pain with a duration of more than three months and were treated with either Qigong and/or Taichi were accepted. A search was conducted on the databases PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus and Science Direct from inception until December 2021. The online Software Rayyan QCRi was used to manage the included articles and the modified Downs and Black checklist was used to assess risk of bias.

Results: Initially 1408 articles were included and after removal of duplicates and articles not meeting the inclusion and exclusion criteria 14 articles were included. Eight studies scored "GOOD "in terms of Risk of Bias, five scored "Fair"and only one scored "Poor. Six studies investigated the use of these techniques in chronic lumbar pain and eight studies in chronic neck pain. A variety of secondary outcome measures was used in these studies but in all of them the primary outcome measure was pain. In Chronic Neck Pain Qigong and TaiChi seem to be superior to no treatment but show similar effectiveness to other types of therapeutic exercise. in Chronic Low Back Pain, they seem to be effective in alleviating pain and improving comorbidities but again have similar benefits to other exercises used for this condition.

Conclusions: This review provides limited evidence that Qigong and TaiChi are superior in the treatment of chronic neck and lumbar pain compared to no treatment and equally effective compared to other exercises used as treatment for spinal pain.

Implications: These findings show that Qigong and TaiChi are effective in the treatment of chronic spinal pain, even though more research, especially regarding taichi and neck pain would be helpful to identify adequate dosages and populations where this type of exercise might be more beneficial that other types of therapeutic exercises.

Funding acknowledgements: N/A

Keywords:
Qigong
TaiChi
Spinal Pain

Topics:
Musculoskeletal: spine
Musculoskeletal
Pain & pain management

Did this work require ethics approval? No

Reason: This study is a systematic review of the literature