Low back pain is a very common symptom. It occurs in high-income, middle-income, and low-income countries and all age groups from children to the elderly population. Globally, years lived with ...disability caused by low back pain increased by 54% between 1990 and 2015, mainly because of population increase and ageing, with the biggest increase seen in low-income and middle-income countries. Low back pain is now the leading cause of disability worldwide. For nearly all people with low back pain, it is not possible to identify a specific nociceptive cause. Only a small proportion of people have a well understood pathological cause—eg, a vertebral fracture, malignancy, or infection. People with physically demanding jobs, physical and mental comorbidities, smokers, and obese individuals are at greatest risk of reporting low back pain. Disabling low back pain is over-represented among people with low socioeconomic status. Most people with new episodes of low back pain recover quickly; however, recurrence is common and in a small proportion of people, low back pain becomes persistent and disabling. Initial high pain intensity, psychological distress, and accompanying pain at multiple body sites increases the risk of persistent disabling low back pain. Increasing evidence shows that central pain-modulating mechanisms and pain cognitions have important roles in the development of persistent disabling low back pain. Cost, health-care use, and disability from low back pain vary substantially between countries and are influenced by local culture and social systems, as well as by beliefs about cause and effect. Disability and costs attributed to low back pain are projected to increase in coming decades, in particular in low-income and middle-income countries, where health and other systems are often fragile and not equipped to cope with this growing burden. Intensified research efforts and global initiatives are clearly needed to address the burden of low back pain as a public health problem.
Low back pain: a call for action Buchbinder, Rachelle; van Tulder, Maurits; Öberg, Birgitta ...
The Lancet (British edition),
06/2018, Volume:
391, Issue:
10137
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Low back pain is the leading worldwide cause of years lost to disability and its burden is growing alongside the increasing and ageing population.1 Because these population shifts are more rapid in ...low-income and middle-income countries, where adequate resources to address the problem might not exist, the effects will probably be more extreme in these regions. Most low back pain is unrelated to specific identifiable spinal abnormalities, and our Viewpoint, the third paper in this Lancet Series,2,3 is a call for action on this global problem of low back pain.
Purpose of Review
Low back pain encompasses three distinct sources: axial lumbosacral, radicular, and referred pain. Annually, the prevalence of low back pain in the general US adult population is ...10–30%, and the lifetime prevalence of US adults is as high as 65–80%.
Recent Findings
Patient history, physical exam, and diagnostic testing are important components to accurate diagnosis and identification of patient pathophysiology. Etiologies of low back pain include myofascial pain, facet joint pain, sacroiliac joint pain, discogenic pain, spinal stenosis, and failed back surgery. In chronic back pain patients, a multidisciplinary, logical approach to treatment is most effective and can include multimodal medical, psychological, physical, and interventional approaches.
Summary
Low back pain is a difficult condition to effectively treat and continues to affect millions of Americans every year. In the current investigation, we present a comprehensive review of low back pain and discuss associated pathophysiology, diagnosis, and treatment.
Many clinical practice guidelines recommend similar approaches for the assessment and management of low back pain. Recommendations include use of a biopsychosocial framework to guide management with ...initial non-pharmacological treatment, including education that supports self-management and resumption of normal activities and exercise, and psychological programmes for those with persistent symptoms. Guidelines recommend prudent use of medication, imaging, and surgery. The recommendations are based on trials almost exclusively from high-income countries, focused mainly on treatments rather than on prevention, with limited data for cost-effectiveness. However, globally, gaps between evidence and practice exist, with limited use of recommended first-line treatments and inappropriately high use of imaging, rest, opioids, spinal injections, and surgery. Doing more of the same will not reduce back-related disability or its long-term consequences. The advances with the greatest potential are arguably those that align practice with the evidence, reduce the focus on spinal abnormalities, and ensure promotion of activity and function, including work participation. We have identified effective, promising, or emerging solutions that could offer new directions, but that need greater attention and further research to determine if they are appropriate for large-scale implementation. These potential solutions include focused strategies to implement best practice, the redesign of clinical pathways, integrated health and occupational interventions to reduce work disability, changes in compensation and disability claims policies, and public health and prevention strategies.
Summary Non-specific low back pain affects people of all ages and is a leading contributor to disease burden worldwide. Management guidelines endorse triage to identify the rare cases of low back ...pain that are caused by medically serious pathology, and so require diagnostic work-up or specialist referral, or both. Because non-specific low back pain does not have a known pathoanatomical cause, treatment focuses on reducing pain and its consequences. Management consists of education and reassurance, analgesic medicines, non-pharmacological therapies, and timely review. The clinical course of low back pain is often favourable, thus many patients require little if any formal medical care. Two treatment strategies are currently used, a stepped approach beginning with more simple care that is progressed if the patient does not respond, and the use of simple risk prediction methods to individualise the amount and type of care provided. The overuse of imaging, opioids, and surgery remains a widespread problem.
Chronic low back pain (CLBP) is a major health issue, yet its underlying mechanisms remain unknown. Studies have demonstrated the importance of emotion and cognition in chronic pain; however, the ...relevant brain physiology in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies are unclear in CLBP populations. Therefore, this review aimed to identify MRI brain changes and examine their potential relationship with emotional and cognitive processes in CLBP.
A systematic search was conducted in 5 databases. Studies that recruited adult, CLBP populations, and used brain MRI protocols were included.
In total, 55 studies met the inclusion criteria. Of the structural MRI studies, 10 of 15 studies found decreased gray matter and 7 of 8 studies found white matter changes in CLBP groups compared with controls. Fourteen resting-state functional MRI studies all reported differences between CLBP and control groups in the default mode network. Interestingly, only 3 of 10 functional MRI studies observed significant differences during noxious stimulation between CLBP and control groups, whereas 13 of 16 studies observed significant brain activation differences in CLBP groups during various external tasks. Finally, there were 3 studies that observed a degree of recovery in functional connectivity following intervention.
The brain changes in CLBP groups were mainly observed in areas and networks important in emotion and cognition, rather than those typically associated with nociception. This supports the understanding that emotional and cognitive processes may be the core contributor to the CLBP experience; however, future studies need to explore these processes further.
Globally, more than half a billion people are suffering from chronic low back pain, which results in poor quality of life for patients and major welfare cost for society. Currently, e-Health has been ...considered as a potential strategy to deliver self-management programs for chronic low back pain, but its effects are uncertain.
To assess the efficacy on pain intensity and disability of e-Health based self-management programs on chronic low back pain.
Systematic review and meta-analysis
Searches of Pubmed, the Cochrane Library, Web of Science, Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Elsevier, Physiotherapy Evidence Database and ProQuest from inception through 2nd April 2019.
Randomized controlled trials were screened and selected if they examined e-Health based self-management programs on chronic low back pain and assessed pain intensity and disability as primary outcomes. Risks of bias were assessed by two independent reviewers. Evidence quality was assessed using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) criteria. Meta-analyses were performed to investigate the effects of e-Health based self-management programs on pain intensity and disability for chronic low back pain. Subgroup analyses were conducted.
Eight randomized controlled trials were included. For pain intensity, moderate-quality evidence indicated there was a clinically important effect of e-Health based self-management programs for relieving pain both at immediate and short-term follow-ups. For disability, moderate-quality evidence showed there was a clinically important effect of e-Health based self-management programs for improving disability at immediate follow-up, and low-quality of evidence showed no significant difference at short-term follow-ups, but with a favorable trend. The results of subgroup analyses indicated that m-Health based self-management programs showed better immediate effects on both pain and disability than web-Health based programs, and programs with durations ≤ 8 weeks demonstrated a better immediate effect on pain than those with durations >8 weeks, but not on disability.
Generally, e-Health based self-management programs may play a positive role in improving pain and disability within short-term period for chronic low back pain patients. More rigorous trials are warranted to determine the optimal delivery mode, duration, and long-term effect of e-Health based self-management programs.
Biomarkers are biological characteristics that can be used to indicate health or disease. This paper reviews studies on biomarkers of low back pain (LBP) in human subjects. LBP is the leading cause ...of disability, caused by various spine‐related disorders, including intervertebral disc degeneration, disc herniation, spinal stenosis, and facet arthritis. The focus of these studies is inflammatory mediators, because inflammation contributes to the pathogenesis of disc degeneration and associated pain mechanisms. Increasingly, studies suggest that the presence of inflammatory mediators can be measured systemically in the blood. These biomarkers may serve as novel tools for directing patient care. Currently, patient response to treatment is unpredictable with a significant rate of recurrence, and, while surgical treatments may provide anatomical correction and pain relief, they are invasive and costly. The review covers studies performed on populations with specific diagnoses and undefined origins of LBP. Since the natural history of LBP is progressive, the temporal nature of studies is categorized by duration of symptomology/disease. Related studies on changes in biomarkers with treatment are also reviewed. Ultimately, diagnostic biomarkers of LBP and spinal degeneration have the potential to shepherd an era of individualized spine medicine for personalized therapeutics in the treatment of LBP.
Systematic review.
To identify, describe, and evaluate common outcome measures in patients with chronic low back pain (CLBP).
The treatment of CLBP has been associated with multiple clinical ...challenges. Further complicating this is the myriad of outcome scores used to assess treatment of CLBP. These scores have been used to examine different domains of patient satisfaction and quality of life in the literature. Critical assessment of the frequency, parity, and the quality of these outcomes are essential to improve our understanding of CLBP.
A systematic review of the English-language literature was undertaken for articles published from January 2001 through December 31, 2010. Electronic databases and reference lists of key articles were searched to identify measures used to evaluate outcomes in six different domains in patients with CLBP. The titles and abstracts of the peer-reviewed literature of LBP were searched to determine which of these measures were most commonly reported in the literature and which have been validated in populations with CLBP.
We identified 75 outcome measures cited to evaluate CLBP. Twenty-nine of these outcome measures were excluded because of only a single citation leaving 46 measures for the evaluation. The most commonly used functional outcomes were the Oswestry Disability Index, Roland Morris Disability Index, and range of motion. For pain, the Numeric Pain Rating Scale, Brief Pain Inventory, Pain Disability Index, McGill Pain Questionnaire, and visual analog scale were most commonly cited. For psychosocial function, the Fear Avoidance Beliefs Questionnaire, Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia, and Beck Depression Inventory were most commonly used. For generic quality of life, short form 36, Nottingham Health Profile, short form 12, and Sickness Impact Profile were the most common measures. For objective measures, the work status/return to work, complications or adverse events, and medications used were the most commonly cited. For preference-based measures, the Euro-Quol 5 dimensions and short form 6 dimensions were most commonly cited. The validity, reliability, responsiveness, universality, and potential proprietary requirements are summarized for each.
Outcome measures should be routinely assessed in patients with CLBP. The choice of appropriate outcome measure should be influenced by the study objectives and design, as well as properties of the particular measure within the context of CLBP.
Recommendation 1: When selecting the appropriate outcome measures for clinical or research purposes, consider domains that best measure what are most important to patients. Measures that are valid, reliable, and responsive to change should be considered first. Other considerations include the number of items required (especially in the context of multiple measures), whether the measure is validated in the relevant language, and the associated costs or fees. Strength: Strong Recommendation 2: Domains of greatest importance include pain, function, and quality of life. If cost utilization is a priority, then preference-based measures should be considered. For pain, we recommend the VAS and NRPS because of their ease of administration and responsiveness. For function, we recommend the ODI and RMDQ. The SF-36 and its shorter versions are most commonly used and should be considered if quality of life is important. If cost utility is important, consider the EQ-5D or SF-6D. Psychosocial tests are best used as screening tools prior to surgery because of their lack of responsiveness. Complications should always be assessed as a standard of clinical practice. Return to work and medication use are complicated outcome measures and not recommended unless the specific study question is focused on these domains. Consider staff and patient burden when prioritizing one's battery of measures.
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