New Studies: 80% Of Adults Experience Lower Back Pain – What is Best Treatment ?

According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NIH), about 80% of adults experience low back pain (LBP) during their lifetime. As you can imagine this creates other social issues and costs, including lost time from work, etc. NIH also says a recent survey revealed that 25% of adults have experienced back pain in just the past 3 months.

Even according to WebMD, about a 3rd of back pain will reoccur within a year.

When we describe low back pain, it is defined in several categories; acute, which lasts several days to a couple weeks, subacute, which lasts between 4 and 12 week and chronic with lasts for 12 weeks or more. The good news is it is rare for low back pain to be related to any serious underlying conditions.

With such a wide spread condition suffered by so many, in 2018 what is the best treatment and should it be changed ? The answer, according to some experts, is it should be changing.

In the physical therapy community it has been widely accepted that LBP is best managed through nondrug and nonsurgical approaches but that is not necessarily the most prescribed treatment. There is still a widespread practice of opioid prescriptions and surgery.

According to the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) this needs to change. In recent article they are calling for change. Julie Fritz, PT, PhD, FAPTA, a co-author of this recent study says there is a “critical need to close the evidence-practice gap across all aspects of spine care”

At Physicians Medical Group of Cleveland we provide the latest and best care with a wide range of  possible treatment options all under one roof. Our 4,000 square foot sports medicine and chiropractic clinic, is one of the largest facilities in Northeast Ohio.