In patients with chronic low back pain (cLBP) guidelines recommend multidisciplinary biopsychosocial rehabilitation (MBR) if other treatments were unsuccessful. However, little is known about the long-term effects of MBR in patients older than 65 years. The objective of this study was to compare the 12 months course of effects of MBR in patients older than 65 years to younger patients.

In this naturalistic prospective observational cohort study, 118 participants of a 3-week MBR were included. The MBR comprised exercise therapy, hydrotherapy, occupational therapy, psychological interventions, patient education and instructions to home exercise programs. Outcome was assessed by the condition specific North American Spine Society (NASS) questionnaire pain/function scale and the generic Short-Form 36 Health Survey (SF-36). From the eight SF-36 scales only Physical Functioning (PF), Bodily Pain (BP) and Mental Health (MH) were included in the analyses. Data were collected at the beginning of treatment, after 3 months and after 12 months. Participants were grouped into “Old” or “Young” with the cut-off 65 years. Statistical differences between follow-up and baseline scores were tested by paired t-tests. Standardized Effect Size (ES) was calculated by dividing the difference between entry and follow-up by the standard deviation (SD) of the baseline score.

In this study, 59 patients were older than 65 years and 59 were younger. The mean ages of the groups old/young were 70 years and 57years respectively. In the group old 64% of patients were female and in the young group 73% were female. The course of the outcomes and the statistical significance of changes are presented in Table 1, Table 2.

This study shows that a MBR program in cLBP patients has similar beneficial long-term effects on pain and condition specific function in patients older than 65 years compared to younger patients.