EFFECTIVENESS OF MUSCLE ENERGY TECHNIQUES (METS) COMPARED TO PASSIVE STRETCHING IN IMPROVING HAMSTRING FLEXIBILITY IN PATIENTS OF NONSPECIFIC CHRONIC LOW BACK PAIN

Background: Hamstring tightness or decreased flexibility is a predisposing cause for the hamstring strain, lumbar spine disorders, and low back pain..

Objective: To determine whether muscle energy technique or static-passive stretch is the better treatment for increasing hamstring flexibility in patients suffering from nonspecific chronic low back pain.

Materials and methods: It were a quasi-experimental study which completed in 4 months from November 2016 to February 2017. A total of 60 subjects of chronic nonspecific low back pain who fulfilled inclusion criteria were selected from different hospital settings of Lahore through convenient sampling and allocated into Group A and Group B. After pre-testing through active knee extension test, subjects in Group A were given muscle energy technique along with conventional physiotherapy and subjects in Group B were given static passive stretching along with conventional physiotherapy treatment. Post-test measurements were taken after 4 weeks. The treatment of five sessions a week, for a total of four weeks, was given to both groups. Improvement in hamstring flexibility was measured through active knee extension test.

Results: SPSS version 20 was used for analysis. Within groups analysis showed that mean popliteal angle of Group A in pretest measurements was 146.03±12.92 and in posttest measurements was 158.70±9.87 (p<0.001*) and mean popliteal angle of measurements in Group B for pretest readings was 147.30±10.75 and in posttest reading, was 155.67±11.55(p<0.001*) showing significant improvement with both interventions.

Mean of difference of pretest-posttest popliteal angle measurement in Group A was 12.67±6.53 and in Group B was 8.37±3.85 (P=0.003) showing that there was statistically significant difference between improvement of both groups and interventions of Group A (METs) are better in improving hamstring flexibility as compared to interventions in group B (static passive stretch)

Conclusion: Muscle energy techniques and static passive stretching, both were effective in improving the hamstring flexibility but muscle energy techniques were found to have better effect as compared to static passive stretching in improving hamstring flexibility in patients with non-specific low back pain

Keywords: Muscle energy techniques, passive static stretching, popliteal angle, hamstring flexibility, low back pain, active knee extension test