Mindfulness for Back Pain Scientific Article in JAMA

Here is a recent article from the Journal of the American Medical Association about treating back pain with mindfulness/psychological methods compared to usual care. I'd say these are pretty impressive results from a randomized clinical trial (gold standard in medical research) published in a pretty impressive journal.

You can download the free PDF here: http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2504811

Or here is a quick overview:

Mindfulness may offer relief for back pain
Journal of the American Medical Association (03/22/16) Vol. 315, No. 12, P. 1240 Cherkin, Daniel c.; Sherman, Karen J.; Balderson, Benjamin H.; et al.

Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) may be beneficial for individuals with chronic back pain, compared with usual care. A recent study out of Seattle looked at 342 adults with chronic low back pain who were randomly assigned to receive MBSR, CBT, or usual care. At 26 weeks, more patients in the MBSR and CBT groups reported clinically meaningful improvement on the modified Roland Disability Questionnaire than did patients receiving usual care. Additionally, 43.6% of the MBSR group and 44.9% of the CBT group reported clinically meaningful improvement in pain bothersomeness, compared with 26.6% in the usual care group. The findings for MBSR continued with little change by 52 weeks for improvement from baseline in functional limitations and self-reported back pain bothersomeness. Based on the results, the researchers suggest that MBSR may serve as an effective treatment for individuals with chronic low back pain. An editorial accompanying the study notes that "high-quality studies such as the clinical trial by Cherkin et al. create a compelling argument for ensuring that an evidence-based health care system should provide access to affordable mind-body therapies."