Low Back Pain in Kids Rarely Serious

By Charles Bankhead, Staff Writer, MedPage Today

BOSTON -- Low back pain in adolescents usually has an undiagnosable source, resolves spontaneously, and warrants a minimalist approach to tests and imaging, analysis of a large clinical series suggested.

Three-fourths of 2,846 patients had undiagnosable, or nonspecific, mechanical low back pain. The most common pathology associated with low back pain was spondylolysis, which accounted for less than 7% of cases and did not change the conservative approach to follow-up.

Full story:  http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/AAP/29064

Effectiveness of Spinal Manipulation for Chronic Low Back Pain

From:  ChiroAccess.com

Published June 7, 2011

Acute or sub-acute low back pain patients have been the target of the preponderance of past randomized clinical trials of spinal manipulation.  Fewer studies have used chronic pain patients.  A study published on May 27, 2011 from Northwestern Health Science University randomly assigned 301 chronic low back pain patients to one of three treatment arms consisting of spinal manipulation, home exercise, or supervised exercise.  The study found that there was no significant difference in the three groups with respect to pain and several other outcomes.  Patients that received the supervised trunk exercises “were most satisfied with care and experienced the greatest gains in trunk muscle endurance and strength”.

Full story here:  http://www.chiroaccess.com/Articles/Effectiveness-of-Spinal-Manipulation-for-Chronic-Low-Back-Pain.aspx?id=0000269

Study Finds That for Low Back Pain, Starting with Chiropractic Saves 40% on Care

A new study finds that care for low back pain initiated with a doctor of chiropractic (DC) saves 40 percent on health care costs when compared with care initiated through a medical doctor (MD), the American Chiropractic Association (ACA) announced today. The study, featuring data from 85,000 Blue Cross Blue Shield beneficiaries, concludes that insurance companies that restrict access to chiropractic care for low back pain treatment may inadvertently pay more for care than they would if they removed such restrictions.

Low back pain is a significant public health problem. Up to 85 percent of Americans have back pain at some point in their lives. In addition to its negative effects on employee productivity, back pain treatment accounts for about $50 billion annually in health care costs—making it one of the top 10 most costly conditions treated in the United States.

Published in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics (JMPT), the new study, “Cost of Care for Common Back Pain Conditions Initiated With Chiropractic Doctor vs. Medical Doctor/Doctor of Osteopathy as First Physician: Experience of One Tennessee-Based General Health Insurer,” looked at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee’s intermediate and large group fully insured population over a two-year span. The insured study population had open access to MDs and DCs through self-referral, and there were no limits applied to the number of MD/DC visits allowed and no differences in co-pays.

Results show that paid costs for episodes of care initiated by a DC were almost 40 percent less than care initiated through an MD. After risk-adjusting each patient’s costs, researchers still found significant savings in the chiropractic group. They estimated that allowing DC-initiated episodes of care would have led to an annual cost savings of $2.3 million for BCBS of Tennessee.

“As doctors of chiropractic, we know firsthand that our care often helps patients avoid or reduce more costly interventions such as drugs and surgery. This study supports what we see in our practices every day,” said ACA President Rick McMichael, DC. “It also demonstrates the value of chiropractic care at a critical time, when our nation is attempting to reform its health care system and contain runaway costs.”

The full study is available online and will appear in print in the December issue of JMPT.

Back surgery may backfire on patients in pain

Patients who had spinal fusion were less likely to return to work and needed more opiates, study says

Pain Center on msn.com

Just a month after back surgery, Nancy Scatena was once again in excruciating pain. The medications her doctor prescribed barely took the edge off the unrelenting back aches and searing jolts down her left leg. “The pain just kept intensifying,” says the 52-year-old Scottsdale, Ariz., woman who suffers from spinal stenosis, a narrowing of the chanel through which spinal nerves pass. “I was suicidal.”

Finally, Scatena made an appointment with another surgeon, one whom friends had called a “miracle worker.” The new doctor assured her that this second operation would fix everything, and in the pain-free weeks following an operation to fuse two of her vertebrae it seemed that he was right. But then the pain came roaring back.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39658423/ns/health-pain_center/