The effectiveness of vibrotherapy in the treatment of non-specific low back pain – a systematic review (2020)

Whole body vibration (WBV) is a physiotherapeutic method that is currently gaining more and more popularity in the treatment of musculoskeletal system disturbances. Recent published results have shown that WBV can reduce low back pain and improve functional capacity, however, the optimal characteristics of therapeutic vibration parameters are unclear. Therefore, a Danish-Chinese team of researchers conducted a systematic review of the scientific literature to summarize and determine the effectiveness of WBV in the treatment of non-specific low back pain (NLBP) and to assess the methodological quality of the analyzed publications.

• Four studies on pain in NLBP, out of six qualified for final evaluation, showed that WBV had a beneficial effect on pain compared to the control group.
• Three, out of six studies that measured the functional performance of patients with NLBP, found significant differences between groups in favor of WBV.

Prepared on the basis of:

Efficacy of whole body vibration therapy on pain and functional ability in people with non-specific low back pain: a systematic review. Wang W, Wang S, Lin W et. al. BMC Complement Med Ther. 2020 May 27;20(1):158.

Test procedure

The online databases: Web of Science, PubMed, Cochrane Library, PEDro, Ovid, EBSCO (Medline) and Scopus were used to search the scientific literature, published up to December 2019, on studies of the effect of WBV on pain intensity and/ or functional performance in people with NLBP. Only articles describing randomized and controlled trials were analyzed. The detailed characteristics of studied populations, treatment of the control groups, WBV parameters and any given results were researched. Methodological quality was also assessed using the PEDro scale.

Use of vibration in the study

The following vibration generating devices were used in the research: ZD-10 vibration therapy device, Galileo plate or Galileo 2000 (Novotec Medical GmbH, Germany), VIB5070 (BODYGREEN, Taiwan, China).

The amplitude and frequency of the vibrations varied, as did the positioning of the patients on the vibration platform. In Yang’s research, the vibration frequencies were variable: from 1 to 50 Hz, similarly to Kaeding’s research, where the vibration frequency ranged from 10 to 30 Hz, and in Wegener’s research, where the frequency was increased from 5 to 12 and then to 20 Hz. The vibration amplitudes varied in various tests from 1.5 to 6 mm. Unfortunately as many as 4 tests did not provide the size of used vibration amplitudes. Vibrotherapy was administered with varying weekly intervals for a period of 6 to 24 weeks.

Results

7 publications were qualified for the systematic review, in which a total of 418 patients were analyzed. Due to the heterogeneity of the parameters of the applied vibrations and the small number of studies, no meta-analysis was carried out.

Four of the six pain studies found that WBV had a beneficial effect on pain compared to the control group, with only two studies being considered of high methodological quality. Of the six studies that measured functional performance, three good quality studies showed significant differences between groups in favor of WBV.

Comment

Overall, there is evidence that WBV is beneficial in the treatment of NLBP over other forms of physical therapy (stability training, classical physical therapy, or routine daily activity). However, due to methodological limitations of many studies, it is still not possible to develop an optimal protocol for WBV vibrotherapy, although research in this direction seems to be very desirable.

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