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Abstract
Treatment of sciatica: what works? An update
published in May - June 2018 - in Il Fisioterapista - issue n.3
Virginia Colibazzi, Adriano Coladonato, Enrico Tonozzi, Riccardo Beltrame

Sciatica is considered a clinical syndrome rather than a specific disease. It is thought to come from a spinal nerve or nerve root disorder and is characterized by pain radiating to the leg below the knee, to the foot and to the fingers, often accompanied by sensory and / or motor deficits. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of rehabilitative treatment in patients with sciatica. The research was conducted on PubMed by using the Mesh terms "Physical Therapy modalities, Self-management or Exercise Therapy and Sciatica / Rehabilitation or Sciatica Therapy" and allowed to include 13 publications of which the full text was read. From the final results, it was found that manual therapy, non-opioid drugs, injections of epidural corticosteroid drugs and disc surgery, but also chemonucleolysis are useful for the treatment of sciatica. In addition, less frequent treatments, such as acupuncture, and experimental treatments, such as those with biological anti-inflammatory agents, can be effective. To date it is not possible to indicate the superiority of a treatment on the others, therefore further studies are needed to provide more solid evidence to support the recommendations of clinical practice and to structure specific diagnostic-therapeutic pathways.