Evidence-Based Chronic Pain Management (Stannard/Evidence-Based Chronic Pain Management) || Chronic Low Back Pain

✍ Scribed by Stannard, Catherine F.; Kalso, Eija; Ballantyne, Jane

• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 172 KB
• Edition: 1
• Category: Article
• ISBN: 1405152915
• DOI: 10.1002/9781444314380.ch7

✦ Synopsis

a specific pathophysiologic mechanism, such as hernia nucleus pulposus (HNP), infection, inflammation, osteoporosis, rheumatoid arthritis, fracture or tumor. Only in about 10% of the patients can specific underlying diseases be identified . The vast majority of patients (up to 90%) are labeled as having nonspecific low back pain, which is defined as symptoms without clear specific cause, i.e. low back pain of unknown origin. Spinal abnormalities on X-rays and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are not strongly associated with nonspecific low back pain, because many people without any symptoms also show these abnormalities .

Nonspecific low back pain is usually classified according to duration as acute (less than 6 weeks), subacute (between 6 weeks and 3 months) or chronic (longer than 3 months) . In general, prognosis is good and most patients with an episode of nonspecific low back pain will recover within a couple of weeks. However, back pain among primary care patients is often a recurrent problem with fluctuating symptoms. The majority of back pain patients will have experienced a previous episode and acute exacerbations of chronic low back pain are common .