Feasibility of Using Functional Progression to Guide the Treatment of Adolescent Low Back Pain

The goal of the proposed research is to test the feasibility of a functional progression program to reduce cost and possible radiation exposure for adolescent athletes with low back pain. Specifically the investigators plan to test the feasibility of using progression in rehabilitation to pragmatically differentially diagnose and treat adolescent athletes with low back pain, instead of using advanced imaging which is the current practice. The investigators propose to recruit 20 participants, with 10 of usual care (advanced imaging) and 10 of proposed intervention (functional progression) to assess the feasibility of using functional progress to guide treatment. The outcomes measured will be number of days for rest, time to start regular rehabilitation, pain experienced, functional outcomes, ability to return to sport, time needed to return to sport. If this pilot demonstrates the feasibility and a decreased rate of advanced imaging and similar clinical outcomes the investigators plan to progress this work into larger trials.