Physical therapy is as effective as surgery for lumbar spinal stenosis, study finds

Surgical decompression treatment for lumbar spinal stenosis is no better than physical therapy in improving symptoms and function, a randomised controlled trial has shown.

The study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine,1 showed that both groups of patients began to show improvement at 10 weeks and continued to improve through 26 weeks. Improvements were maintained in both groups at the …