Increasing Long-Term Physical Activity After Lumbar Spine Surgery

October 15, 2025 updated by: Hospital for Special Surgery, New York
After recuperating from low back surgery patients often perpetuate a sedentary lifestyle because they are concerned about injury and recurrent pain. The objective of this study is to test the feasibility of a program to increase lifestyle walking starting several months after low back surgery.

Study Overview

Status

Active, not recruiting

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

The primary objective of this RCT is to compare energy expenditure from walking between an experimental group that receives a multi-component intervention based on the Health Belief Model of Behavior Change versus a control group. Patients who had surgery for a degenerative condition will be randomized postop when their surgeons deem them orthopedically stable to increase walking (at about 3 months).

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

260

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • New York
      • New York, New York, United States, 10021
        • Hospital For Special Surgery

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years to 80 years (Adult, Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Description

  • Inclusion Criteria: Patients will be eligible if they had lumbar surgery for a degenerative condition and their surgeon deems it safe for them to walk more.
  • Exclusion Criteria: Patients will be excluded if they had any new cardiopulmonary symptoms since surgery.

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Single

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Active Comparator: Education/Self-efficacy
Booklet about physical activity, movement monitoring device, encouragement
Behavioral: Education/Self-efficacy
The education/self-efficacy group will 1) receive information about benefits of physical activity and national activity guidelines, 2) receive instruction on how to increase lifestyle walking, 3) use movement monitoring devices, 4) make a walking contract and 5) receive interval contract-directed encouragement from study personnel.
Active Comparator: Education
Booklet about physical activity
Behavioral: Education
The education group will receive information about safe physical activity.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Weekly energy expenditure in kilocalories per week as measured by the Paffenbarger Physical Activity and Exercise Index
Time Frame: 16 weeks
Change in enrollment to 16-week Paffenbarger Physical Activity and Exercise Index
16 weeks

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Disability due to pain as measured by the Oswestry Disability Index
Time Frame: 16 weeks
Change in enrollment to 16-week Oswestry Disability Index
16 weeks

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Hospital for Special Surgery, New York

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Carol A Mancuso, MD, Hospital for Special Surgery, New York

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

November 11, 2015

Primary Completion (Estimated)

June 1, 2026

Study Completion (Estimated)

June 1, 2026

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

November 10, 2015

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

November 19, 2015

First Posted (Estimated)

November 20, 2015

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

October 20, 2025

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

October 15, 2025

Last Verified

October 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 2015-142

Drug and device information, study documents

product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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