Physical activity prevent insomnia in workers with back- and neck-pain

IMM's unit for implementation and intervention research has studied the possibility of preventing sleep problems in employees with back and neck pain by physical activity.

Back- and neck-pain are responsible for much suffering and substantial costs to the individual, employers and society. Unfortunately, such pain is often associated with other health conditions, such as sleep disturbance. It is therefore important to prevent temporary or recurrent pain from becoming persistent or chronic. Using data from the AHA-study (that investigates the health of industrial workers in Sweden with repeated measures) we investigated individuals who were at risk for chronic back- and neck-pain. Our hypothesis was that the physically active workers would experience less future insomnia compared to those who were physically inactive. The results show that physical activity does prevent insomnia in workers with back- and neck-pain. Furthermore, physical activity is most effective early in the pain course.

Publication

Does physical activity buffer insomnia due to back and neck pain?
Axén I, Kwak L, Hagberg J, Jensen I
PLoS ONE 2017 ;12(9):e0184288