The August issue of The Journal of Pain featured a long-term study of almost 500 lower back pain cases.
Researchers found that severe pain early on increases the risk of continued pain for half a year by 12% and pain at 5 years by 9%.
This study highlights the importance of taking lower back pain seriously, especially if it is severe.
Even if pain is gone by the 5-year mark, pursuing the right kind of treatment shortly after onset can decrease your need for invasive methods like spinal injections in the short-term and can reduce your medical expenditure by cutting down on the need for many doctor's visits.
Physical therapy is a standard, but underused, form of therapy for back pain management.
In 2012, a group of researchers got together to determine whether or not seeking physical therapy early on reduces patient risk for surgery, injections and frequent doctor's visits.
They poured over many thousands of billing claims to gather their data.
This study found that patients who sought physical therapy within 4 weeks of back pain onset - the acute phase - were much less likely to require invasive treatments and many doctor's visits than those who waited until pain had become chronic, or lasted over 3 months, to receive physical therapy.
To be exact, those in the acute group were 62% less likely to receive surgery, 53% less likely to need frequent doctor's visits and were 54% less likely to receive injections for pain management.
More on this study can be found at http://www.
ncbi.
nlm.
nih.
gov/pmc/articles/PMC3062937/#!po=8.
82353 One of the alarming findings of this study was that, among patients who received surgery, only 27.
5% had tried physical therapy beforehand.
While some of these incidents were likely due to severe neurological problems that required immediate surgical intervention, it's not likely that all or even most of them did.
The rising rate of invasive procedures, including surgery, injections and narcotic medication, has gained increasing attention and caused alarm among many medical professionals, researchers and journalists across the country.
The rise in invasive treatments and decline of safer and cheaper conservative options comes with a lack of corresponding evidence in favor of the former methods.
This trend is hurting patients' bank accounts as well as their backs.
To learn more about the alarming trends in back pain treatment, see http://www.
reuters.
com/article/2013/07/29/us-back-pain-treatment-idUSBRE96S0Z720130729.
When the medical system stops looking out for patients' best interests, this responsibility falls on patients.
Do your research and approach treatments with a healthy level of skepticism while keeping an open mind toward conservative methods.
Researchers found that severe pain early on increases the risk of continued pain for half a year by 12% and pain at 5 years by 9%.
This study highlights the importance of taking lower back pain seriously, especially if it is severe.
Even if pain is gone by the 5-year mark, pursuing the right kind of treatment shortly after onset can decrease your need for invasive methods like spinal injections in the short-term and can reduce your medical expenditure by cutting down on the need for many doctor's visits.
Physical therapy is a standard, but underused, form of therapy for back pain management.
In 2012, a group of researchers got together to determine whether or not seeking physical therapy early on reduces patient risk for surgery, injections and frequent doctor's visits.
They poured over many thousands of billing claims to gather their data.
This study found that patients who sought physical therapy within 4 weeks of back pain onset - the acute phase - were much less likely to require invasive treatments and many doctor's visits than those who waited until pain had become chronic, or lasted over 3 months, to receive physical therapy.
To be exact, those in the acute group were 62% less likely to receive surgery, 53% less likely to need frequent doctor's visits and were 54% less likely to receive injections for pain management.
More on this study can be found at http://www.
ncbi.
nlm.
nih.
gov/pmc/articles/PMC3062937/#!po=8.
82353 One of the alarming findings of this study was that, among patients who received surgery, only 27.
5% had tried physical therapy beforehand.
While some of these incidents were likely due to severe neurological problems that required immediate surgical intervention, it's not likely that all or even most of them did.
The rising rate of invasive procedures, including surgery, injections and narcotic medication, has gained increasing attention and caused alarm among many medical professionals, researchers and journalists across the country.
The rise in invasive treatments and decline of safer and cheaper conservative options comes with a lack of corresponding evidence in favor of the former methods.
This trend is hurting patients' bank accounts as well as their backs.
To learn more about the alarming trends in back pain treatment, see http://www.
reuters.
com/article/2013/07/29/us-back-pain-treatment-idUSBRE96S0Z720130729.
When the medical system stops looking out for patients' best interests, this responsibility falls on patients.
Do your research and approach treatments with a healthy level of skepticism while keeping an open mind toward conservative methods.