CClinicalTrials.gg
CompletedNCT04494698Updated Jul 18, 2025

Impact of DuoTherm Compared to TENS on Pain and Disability With Acute and Chronic Low Back Pain

An interventional study of Duotherm VibraCool Back Device and TENS 8-channel unit in Acute Low-back Pain, Chronic Low-back Pain and Pain, Intractable, sponsored by MMJ Labs LLC. Completed at 2 sites in United States. Open to participants aged 18 Years to 90 Years. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2025-07-18.

Sponsored by MMJ Labs LLC · Not applicable, Interventional, and Treatment

Phase
Not applicable
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
160
Allocation
Randomized
Ages
18 Years to 90 Years
Sex
All
01

Study summary

Evaluate pain and disability change in Low Back Pain with DuoTherm Compared to Active Control

Read the detailed description

160 patients with moderate to severe acute or exacerbations of chronic low back pain presenting for chiropractic and rehabilitation care will be randomized to one of two conditions: a pain relief belt device incorporating multiple speeds of vibration and optional heat, cold, and pressure delivered through a sculpted metal plate; or an 8 channel prescription TENS unit. Patients will be prompted by a Qualtrics text link to a secure data recording site collecting pain and medication use.

02

Conditions studied

  • Acute Low-back Pain
  • Chronic Low-back Pain
  • Pain, Intractable

Keywords

  • chronic low back pain
  • spine pain
  • medical device
  • analgesia
  • vibration
  • Multifidus
03

Who can participate

Ages eligible
18 Years to 90 Years
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
No

Eligibility criteria

Inclusion Criteria (same cohort as enrolled with NCT04491175):

  • Presentation for treatment of acute or acute exacerbation of chronic low back pain
  • Self-report NRS measures >=4 (moderate to severe)
  • Capacity to understand all relevant risks and potential benefits of the study (informed consent)
  • Willingness to communicate information on prescription pill # and dose, or dose and pill type if medication is prescribed by someone else.

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Pacemaker
  • Radicular pain likely reflecting a surgical or mechanical problem
  • BMI greater than 50 (device won't fit, initially thought to be BMI 30 but up to 50 included)
  • Sensitivity to cold or vibration (e.g Raynaud's or Sickle Cell Disease)
  • Diabetic neuropathy rendering a patient unable to determine if the device is too hot
  • New neurologic deficits
  • Skin lesions over the low back area
  • Contraindication to any medication for pain management that would impact analgesic use record
  • Inability to apply DuoTherm or Active Control TENS Device
04

Study design

Phase
Not applicable
Primary purpose
Treatment
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention model
Parallel assignment
Masking
Triple (Participant, Investigator, Outcomes assessor)
Enrollment
160 participants (actual)

Study arms

  • Experimental
    DuoTherm VibraCool Back Device

    A multimodal low back pain relief device incorporating 8 mechanical stimulation patterns of vibration and 5 intensity settings with optional heat, cold, or pressure delivered through a sculpted metal plate attached by a belt and controlled by buttons on the belt. Patients will be instructed to use the device daily for 30 minutes.

    Device: Duotherm VibraCool Back Device

  • Active comparator
    Multimodal TENS Unit

    LG SMART TENS stimulator is an 8-channel portable electrotherapy device featuring transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) therapeutic device, which is used for pain relief. The stimulator sends a gentle electrical current to underlying nerves and muscle groups via electrodes applied on the skin. The parameters of the device are controlled by buttons on a controller with an adjustable intensity level.

    Device: TENS 8-channel unit

Interventions

  • DeviceDuotherm VibraCool Back Device

    Active New multimodal pain device

    Also known as: Vibracool plus heat or pressure, Buzzy

  • DeviceTENS 8-channel unit

    LG Smart TENS unit

05

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Change in current pain intensity from initial to final

    Self-rated current pain on Numeric Rating Scale with 0 no pain and 10 maximum pain

    Time frame: Daily for 30 days, then weekly and monthly until 3 months (acute) or 6 months (chronic)

  2. Change in Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) Pain Interference

    Response formats for all scales are a 5-point ordinal rating scale of "Not at all," "A little bit," "Somewhat," "Quite a bit," and "Very much," where lower scores are better and higher scores indicate worse pain. The outcomes being addressed are Change in Monthly Pain Interference (8 questions, yielding possible scores of 8 (low) to 40 (highest) normed on a T-Score where 50 is the average in the United States, 40.7 is "no disability", 55 is mild, 57.7 is moderate, and 65.7 is severe

    Time frame: Baseline then weekly and monthly until 3 months (acute) or 6 months (chronic)

Secondary outcomes

  1. Resolution of disability using PROMIS Pain Interference

    Achievement of average pain interference of a T-Score of 50 at last recorded PROMIS Pain Interference

    Time frame: Baseline then weekly and monthly until 3 months (acute) or 6 months (chronic)

  2. Change in Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) Pain Interference (8a) measures in those with intractable pain as defined and compared with surgical multifidus intervention studies

    Comparison between the experimental and active control interventions crosswalked with the Oswestry Disability outcomes in multifudus electrical stimulation studies.

    Time frame: Initial through 6 month measurements (or 13 week if chronic enrolled as acute)

06

Study locations

2 sites
  • Sport and Spine Rehab Clinics
    Landover, Maryland 20785, United States
  • Sport and Spine Rehab Clinic
    Fairfax, Virginia 22030, United States
07

References and documents

Publications

  • Deyo RA, Dworkin SF, Amtmann D, Andersson G, Borenstein D, Carragee E, Carrino J, Chou R, Cook K, Delitto A, Goertz C, Khalsa P, Loeser J, Mackey S, Panagis J, Rainville J, Tosteson T, Turk D, Von Korff M, Weiner DK. Report of the NIH Task Force on research standards for chronic low back pain. Phys Ther. 2015 Feb;95(2):e1-e18. doi: 10.2522/ptj.2015.95.2.e1. PubMed 25639530 ↗
  • Farrar JT, Young JP Jr, LaMoreaux L, Werth JL, Poole MR. Clinical importance of changes in chronic pain intensity measured on an 11-point numerical pain rating scale. Pain. 2001 Nov;94(2):149-158. doi: 10.1016/S0304-3959(01)00349-9. PubMed 11690728 ↗
  • Stumbo SP, Yarborough BJ, McCarty D, Weisner C, Green CA. Patient-reported pathways to opioid use disorders and pain-related barriers to treatment engagement. J Subst Abuse Treat. 2017 Feb;73:47-54. doi: 10.1016/j.jsat.2016.11.003. Epub 2016 Nov 15. PubMed 28017184 ↗
  • Darnall BD, Colloca L. Optimizing Placebo and Minimizing Nocebo to Reduce Pain, Catastrophizing, and Opioid Use: A Review of the Science and an Evidence-Informed Clinical Toolkit. Int Rev Neurobiol. 2018;139:129-157. doi: 10.1016/bs.irn.2018.07.022. Epub 2018 Aug 6. PubMed 30146045 ↗
  • Furlan AD, Giraldo M, Baskwill A, Irvin E, Imamura M. Massage for low-back pain. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2015 Sep 1;2015(9):CD001929. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD001929.pub3. PubMed 26329399 ↗
  • Maddalozzo GF, Kuo B, Maddalozzo WA, Maddalozzo CD, Galver JW. Comparison of 2 Multimodal Interventions With and Without Whole Body Vibration Therapy Plus Traction on Pain and Disability in Patients With Nonspecific Chronic Low Back Pain. J Chiropr Med. 2016 Dec;15(4):243-251. doi: 10.1016/j.jcm.2016.07.001. Epub 2016 Aug 25. PubMed 27857632 ↗
  • Cohen SP, Bhaskar A, Bhatia A, Buvanendran A, Deer T, Garg S, Hooten WM, Hurley RW, Kennedy DJ, McLean BC, Moon JY, Narouze S, Pangarkar S, Provenzano DA, Rauck R, Sitzman BT, Smuck M, van Zundert J, Vorenkamp K, Wallace MS, Zhao Z. Consensus practice guidelines on interventions for lumbar facet joint pain from a multispecialty, international working group. Reg Anesth Pain Med. 2020 Jun;45(6):424-467. doi: 10.1136/rapm-2019-101243. Epub 2020 Apr 3. PubMed 32245841 ↗
  • Tang X, Schalet BD, Hung M, Brodke DS, Saltzman CL, Cella D. Linking Oswestry Disability Index to the PROMIS pain interference CAT with equipercentile methods. Spine J. 2021 Jul;21(7):1185-1192. doi: 10.1016/j.spinee.2021.02.012. Epub 2021 Feb 19. PubMed 33610807 ↗
  • Gilligan C, Volschenk W, Russo M, Green M, Gilmore C, Mehta V, Deckers K, De Smedt K, Latif U, Sayed D, Georgius P, Gentile J, Mitchell B, Langhorst M, Huygen F, Baranidharan G, Patel V, Mironer E, Ross E, Carayannopoulos A, Hayek S, Gulve A, Van Buyten JP, Tohmeh A, Fischgrund J, Lad S, Ahadian F, Deer T, Klemme W, Rauck R, Rathmell J, Maislin G, Heemels JP, Eldabe S. Five-Year Longitudinal Follow-Up of Restorative Neurostimulation Shows Durability of Effectiveness in Patients With Refractory Chronic Low Back Pain Associated With Multifidus Muscle Dysfunction. Neuromodulation. 2024 Jul;27(5):930-943. doi: 10.1016/j.neurom.2024.01.006. Epub 2024 Mar 12. PubMed 38483366 ↗
  • Baxter AL, Thrasher A, Etnoyer-Slaski JL, Cohen LL. Multimodal mechanical stimulation reduces acute and chronic low back pain: Pilot data from a HEAL phase 1 study. Front Pain Res (Lausanne). 2023 Apr 26;4:1114633. doi: 10.3389/fpain.2023.1114633. eCollection 2023. PubMed 37179530 ↗
  • Baxter AL, Etnoyer-Slaski JL, Tucker O, Williams JAR, Swartout K, Cohen LL, Lawson ML. Novel multimodal mechanical stimulation is superior to TENS to treat and prevent chronic low back pain: a randomized controlled trial. Front Pain Res (Lausanne). 2025 Aug 18;6:1625420. doi: 10.3389/fpain.2025.1625420. eCollection 2025. PubMed 40901560 ↗

Study documents

  • Informed consent form · Jul 13, 2022

Documents are hosted by the registry — open the source record to download them.

Individual participant data

Plan to share: Yes — Individual participant data that underlie the clinical results reported in any publications, after deidentification, will be available for a period of 36 months after publication to achieve approved aims of any researcher who provides a methodologically sound proposal. Proposals should be directed to info@mmjlabs.com. To gain acccess, data requestors will need to sign a data access agreement.

Supporting information: Study protocol, Sap, Icf, Csr

08

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT04494698
Lead sponsor
MMJ Labs LLC
Collaborators
Sport and Spine Rehab Clinical Research Foundation, National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
Responsible party
Amy Lynn Baxter (Principal Investigator, MMJ Labs LLC) — Principal investigator
First posted
Jul 31, 2020
Start date
Jun 23, 2022
Primary completion
Jul 9, 2024
Completion
Jun 24, 2025
Last update
Jul 18, 2025

Study contacts

Amy Baxter, MD
principal investigator · Pain Care Labs (a dba of MMJ Labs)

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
Yes
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
Yes
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

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This study is completed, as verified in Jul 2025. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.

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