For treatment of lumbar radiculopathy in the short-term, non-surgical spinal decompression therapy plus routine physical therapy exhibited superiority over routine physical therapy alone.

A single-blinded, randomized controlled trial was carried out to assess the effects of combination of routine physical therapy and spinal decompression therapy in lumbar radiculopathy.

Overall, 60 people having lumbar radiculopathy were randomly assigned into experimental (n = 30) and control (n = 30) groups. Using visual analogue scale (VAS), pain at rest was estimated. The prone isometric chest raise test was used for assessment of back muscle endurance, the Urdu version of the Oswestry disability index (ODI-U) was used for functional disability, Short Form 36-Item Survey (SF-36) for quality of life, and modified-modified Schober's test was used to determine the lumbar range of motion. All the volunteers were administered twelve therapy sessions over four weeks.

With the aid of analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) test, a substantial between-group improvement was noted in VAS, ODI-U, back muscle endurance, lumbar range of motion, role physical, and bodily pain domains of SF-36, that was in favor of non-surgical spinal decompression therapy group.

The between-group difference was 6.33 ± 2.52 for bodily pain domain of SF-36, 1.07 ± 0.32 cm for VAS, 5.65 ± 1.48 points for ODI-U, 2.62 ± 0.27 cm for lumbar flexion, 0.96 ± 0.28 for lumbar extension, 5.77 ± 2.39 for role physical, and 13.93 ± 5.85 seconds for back muscle endurance. Notably, a medium to large effect size (d = 0.61-2.47) was noted for these endpoints.

In people having lumbar radiculopathy, the spinal decompression therapy plus routine physical therapy is highly effective to improve functional disability, pain, physical role domain of quality of life, lumbar range of motion, and back muscle endurance when compared to routine physical therapy.