The Effects of Dance Therapy in Women With Chronic Low Back Pain

Investigation of the Effects of Dance Therapy on Balance, Falling, Body Awareness and Functionality in Women With Chronic Low Back Pain

The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of dance therapy on balance, falling, body awareness and functionality parameters in patients with chronic low back pain. As a result of our study, it is thought that dance therapy will positively affect balance, falling, body awareness and functionality in patients with chronic low back pain compared to conventional therapy.

H 1: Dance therapy improves balance in women with chronic low back pain.

H 2: Dance therapy reduces the risk of falling in women with chronic low back pain.

H 3: Dance therapy increases body awareness in women with chronic low back pain.

H 4: Dance therapy increases functionality in women with chronic low back pain.

H 5: Dance therapy provides more improvement in the parameters investigated compared to conventional therapy in women with chronic low back pain.

Individuals diagnosed with chronic low back pain and meeting the inclusion criteria are going to be included in the study. These individuals are going to be divided into groups as the odd numbers to study group and even numbers to the control group. Hotpack, ultrasound and Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) are going to be applied to the patients in the both groups for 3 days a week for 2 months. Besides that, control group is going to perform 40-minute classical exercise program 3 days a week for 2 months. Study group is going to perform dance therapy protocol as indicated below;

• 10 minutes warm-up (stepping),
• 25 minutes of dance (such as; steps, figures using hip and knee flexions, hip circulation, and hip rotations)
• 5 minutes stretching (relaxation) exercises.

Demographic information form is going be filled out patients including information about; age, height (cm), weight (kg), occupation, educational status, bilateral leg length (cm), previous and present diseases, waist/hip ratio, previous surgeries, trunk range of motions, low back pain duration, smoking, falling story. Additionally, following questionnaires are going to be applied to both groups;

• Short Form Mc Gill Pain Questionnaire,
• Oswestry Disability Index,
• Body Awareness Ratio Questionnaire,
• Nottingham Health Profile Questionnaire,
• Tampa Kinesiophobia Scale,
• The World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQoL) Scale,
• Y balance test
• Time Up and Go (TUG) test

SPSS version 23 (SPSS Inc, Armonk, NY) program will be used in the analysis of the data. Mann Whitney U test, Wilcoxon test and student t test will be analyse methods.

Inclusion criteria;

• Those who agree to participate in the study voluntarily
• Having low back pain lasting longer than 3 months,
• Having values between 4 and 7 on the Visual Analog Scale.
• Female individuals between the ages of 18-65

Exclusion criteria; Those with a Body Mass Index (BMI) greater than 35 kg/m², pregnant women, those with following problems; neural findings, malignancy, inflammation, arthritis, metabolic bone disease, column vertebralis or lower extremity surgery, cardiovascular system diseases, severe osteoporosis, communication and hearing disorders, and those who illiterate, receive other treatment for low back pain.