PeerWell’s Digital Lower Back Program Reduced Back Pain by 35% and Improved Disability from Home
Situation
On any given day, 30% of Americans suffer from acute back pain, with 16 million experiencing chronic back pain. Around 80% of people will experience back pain throughout their lifespan—and these numbers are on the rise. A 2018 study noted that disability from back pain has doubled over the last 30 years. Back pain is at epidemic levels in the United States and is officially a public health problem.
PeerWell and The PreHab Guys collaborated to create a whole-person back pain program with daily exercises and Five Pillar content. The 10-week paid program was offered to individual back pain sufferers.
These individuals had acute, subacute or chronic pain, injuries and other secondary comorbidities. To assess lower back pain disability, PeerWell collected data using the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI), a standardized, participant-completed questionnaire used by clinicians and researchers to quantify level of function in activities of daily living.
Result
A statistical analysis demonstrated a linear decline in composite measures of back pain, indicating not only a reduction in pain, but also an improvement in functional level. 85% of participants were able to reduce their pain by an average of 35%. More than half of participants (59% total) significantly improved their functional levels as measured by their ODI scores.
This significant improvement translates to participants reporting ODI scores that lowered their disability classification by at least one level.
To read the full study, download the PDF here: