Editor's Choice Main Category: Back Pain Also Included In: Sports Medicine / Fitness Article Date: 17 Aug 2012 - 1:00 PDT

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The specially-developed 12-week group yoga intervention program was observed and compared to conventional general practitioner (GP) care alone.

In order to decide if this was an appropriate use of NHS resources, the cost of the program needed to be checked out. There are currently no available yoga classes through the NHS which is why the team wanted to find the likely cost of a program.

After much examination, the experts, from the University of York's Department of Health Sciences and the Centre for Health Economics, and the Hull York Medical School, concluded that there was a high chance (around 70%) of the yoga intervention being cost effective if the cost remained below 300 per patient (for a cycle of 12 classes).

Results also showed that participants in the control group had more days off work than those in the yoga program. After reporting back pain, a control group participant took an average of 12 days off. The cost associated with this control group participant's time off was 1,202, as opposed to 374 for a yoga group member.

Professor David Torgerson, lead author and Director of York Trials Unit, in the University of York's Department of Health Sciences, said: "Back pain represents a significant burden to the NHS in the UK and to society as a whole. As well as the associated health care costs, it is also a major cause of work absenteeism which leads to a productivity loss to society."

He continued to explain how there has been little research on yoga's cost effectiveness, even though evidence has shown the benefits for people with chronic and low back pain. "In our study we evaluated a specially-designed yoga class package by using individual-level data from a multi-centred randomized controlled trial. On the basis of the 12-month trial, we conclude that 12 weekly group classes of specialised yoga are likely to provide a cost-effective intervention for the treatment of patients with chronic or recurrent low back pain."

Back pain is one of the most common medical conditions treated in primary care in the U.K., costing the NHS about 1.37 billion and the health care sector 2.10 billion a year. Each year, an estimated 2.6 million people suffer with back problems and turn to their GP for advice.

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Yoga Could Be A Cost-effective Treatment For Back Pain