Visceral Manipulation in Patients With Chronic Low Back Pain

Non-specific chronic low back pain is a common multifactorial condition common to the world population. It is defined as a pain and discomfort located below the ribs and above the gluteal folds that may or may not have referred pain in the leg for more than 12 weeks. Visceral manipulation is a manual therapy technique that aims to normalize mechanical, vascular and neurological dysfunctions of the viscera with the objective of improving its functioning. Visceral dysfunction may potentially activate or exacerbate the symptoms of low back pain in the presence of compromised movements between the internal organs and its connective tissues. There are two ways in which a change in visceral mobility could interfere with low back pain, referred visceral pain and central hypersensitivity. The first occurs due to neural convergence, since there is no spinocortical tract that only sends visceral or somatic afferences, its afferences are crossed in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord. The second is that the prolonged and continuous activation of nociceptors, due to the alteration in the mobility of the gastrointestinal and urinary system, can generate central hypersensitivity. Therefore, the investigators hypothesized that through the visceral manipulation the fascial adherences would lyse and the visceral spasms would demise, reducing the peripheral input, thus, lessening pain in the low back.