Doctors Receive New Guidelines for Treating Low Back Pain

Thursday October 4, 2007

Up until now, the treatment of low back pain has been a loose collection of methods, strategies, outcomes and pricing structures. But this week, in an update of guidelines on evaluation and treatment produced by the American College of Physicians and the American Pain Society, that scene is poised to change. According to the authors of "Diagnosis and Treatment of Low Back Pain: A Joint Clinical Practice Guideline from the American College of Physicians and the American Pain Society":

"there has been little consensus either within or between specialities, on appropriate clinical evaluation and management of low back pain".

The authors go on to say that there were a number of studies showing large variations in how low back pain is treated and diagnosed. They say that even though there are many routes to the treatment of back pain, most of the time patients have experienced similar results.

Updated guidelines for diganosing and treating low back pain.

There are 7 guidelines which range from how to categorize the pain according to cause, to when not to order an imaging test, how to prescribe medication and when and what types of complementary and alterative medicine therapies can be used in the medical setting. I will be covering each one of these recommendations in the coming weeks. For now, let’s say that, if and when physicians around the country adopt these guidelines, you should be given a researched supported reason for the treatments that are recommended to you, and your evaluation and care should start making more sense to you.

The guideline update is based on reviews of medical research in the field of spinal medicine, and is published in the October 2, 2007 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine.

_{Photo:
Adam Ciesielski}

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