FUNCTIONAL RESTORATION - COMPARISON OF SURGICAL AND NONSURGICAL SPINEPATIENTS

The present study was designed to evaluate whether chronic low back pa in patients who underwent surgery would demonstrate comparable gains i n functional capacity, relative to those patients who had not undergon e surgery, after completing a functional restoration program. A subset (n = 350) of demographically matched patients from a large cohort (n = 483) of consecutive chronically disabled patients who underwent func tional restoration for their lumbar pain-related injuries was evaluate d. Results revealed that the surgical and nonsurgical groups displayed comparable levels of strength measures, as well as demonstrating impr ovement from pre- to posttreatment. These findings clearly demonstrate that various functional capacity measures in some surgery patients wi ll be comparable to unoperated comparison patients when undergoing fun ctional restoration after surgery. Implications of these findings are discussed.