TUESDAY, Feb. 23, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- A procedure that uses radio waves to treat chronic low back pain provided long-lasting relief to a small group of patients, researchers report.

Called intradiscal biacuplasty (IDB), the procedure uses two water-cooled needles to blast radiofrequency energy at the nerve fibers within and around a spinal disc that's begun to degenerate but has not ruptured, explained lead researcher Dr. Michael Gofeld.

"Basically you're destroying the nerve fibers, which will lead to the elimination of pain," he said. Gofeld is a chronic pain management specialist at St. Michael's Hospital and Women's College Hospital in Toronto.

TUESDAY, Feb. 23, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- Mindful meditation may offer a measure of pain relief to seniors suffering from chronic lower back pain, new research suggests.

The study involved nearly 300 older adults with long-term lower back pain, half of whom were assigned to a two-month mindful meditation course.

"Mindfulness meditation is a method to learn how to be fully engaged in the present moment and not let the mind get so easily distracted," explained study lead author Dr. Natalia Morone. She is an associate professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh.

As patients practiced mindfulness meditation and tried to stay more focused on the present moment, "participants found they experienced less pain," Morone said.

Updated by: C. Benjamin Ma, MD, Professor, Chief, Sports Medicine and Shoulder Service, UCSF Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, San Francisco, CA. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Isla Ogilvie, PhD, and the A.D.A.M. Editorial team.

To prevent complications after surgery, there are some positions you should avoid.

THURSDAY, Feb. 11, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- A new study supports what many American seniors may already know: that knee "instability" boosts their odds for a dangerous fall.

"Falls, injury from falls and poor balance confidence are extremely common and debilitating problems in older people," said study author Michael Nevitt, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco.

"The present study has demonstrated for the first time that knee instability and knee buckling are important causes of these problems in the very large segment of the older population suffering from knee pain," Nevitt added.

MONDAY, Jan. 11, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- Exercise may reduce your risk of low back pain, Australian researchers report.

They reviewed 23 studies that included nearly 31,000 people and found that exercise, alone or with education, can prevent back pain.

Specifically, exercise and education reduced the risk of a low back pain episode by 45 percent, and exercise alone reduced the risk of a low back pain episode by 35 percent and the risk of time off work due to back pain by 78 percent.

The benefits of exercise and education were reduced after one year, while the benefits of exercise alone disappeared after one year.

THURSDAY, Jan. 7, 2016 (HealthDay News) -- An exercise program meant to boost coordination of muscles that control and support the spine can help reduce lower back pain, a new study suggests.

This type of program -- called motor control exercise -- begins with patients practicing normal use of these muscles by doing simple tasks, usually with guidance from a therapist or expert. The exercises gradually become more demanding and include activities that patients typically do during work or recreation.

Researchers analyzed data from 29 clinical trials that included more than 2,400 people, aged 22 to 55, with lower back pain.