Better Treatments to Relieve Back Pain?
More and more treatments and tests have been developed to relieve back pain over the last 10 years. You would expect our care of back
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pain to be better than it used to be.... right?
An interesting new study should make us stop and think twice about what exactly we think we are doing with the treatment of lower back pain (1).
This study looked at how much has been spent on treatment to relieve back pain in America 1997 to 2005. They also asked people with back pain how they felt in lots of different ways including their mental health, physical function, any work or school limitations, and social limitations.
The results are pretty shocking. More people are complaining of back and neck pain that interfered with their lives in 2005 than in 1997, an increase from 20.7% to 24.7%.
More worrying though is that the amount of money spent on back pain has increased by 65% (this is allowing for inflation).
65% more spent on back pain treatment! You would expect this to result in more people getting back pain relief??
Actually, no, the study shows that the self reported measures of health in 2005 were worse than those in 1997.
So…more of us have it, we spend (lots) more on it and we are not feeling any better at all.
This must surely make us stop and question what we are doing here? I have my own theories about this:
- Expensive tests and investigations such as MRI scans are not always helpful when treating lower back pain.
- We are learning more all the time about how unhelpful thoughts and beliefs can make lower back pain relief more difficult. These are not always properly addressed.
- Many of us are deeply dissatisfied with our care unless we can have a clear diagnosis but unfortunately, the most common type of lower back pain, non-specific lower back pain, often does not have a clear single cause. This leaves us seeking increasingly expensive answers to relieve back pain.
- Just because a treatment to relieve back pain is new, complex and expensive does not mean that it is always better. Surgery is of course appropriate for some but not all, for many a simple lower back exercise programme may do the trick.
- Back pain is so common it's almost normal to have it; we need to learn to deal actively with the symptoms much earlier on.
- We need to keep encouraging people to take an active role in their treatment and to rely less on complex tests and procedures and on expecting that someone should 'fix it' for us.
What do you think? Comments are welcome, use the form on this page.
Lower Back Pain Toolkit Home Page
References.
1. Martin, B.I. et al. Expenditures and Health Status Among Adults With Back and Neck Problems. JAMA 299, 656-664(2008).
07-Jul-2008
