Simple interventions can help solve back pain

Listening to simple guidelines about back pain can help reduce serious issues that could keep you off work.

People with lower back pain injury miss 11 more days of work in a year when they only receive treatments that are not recommended by medical guidelines, according to a new study by scientists at University of Utah Health.

However, if employers and employees follow advice on how to resolve back issues, the pain will clear up in many cases, experts say.

"The closer people's care follows evidence-based guidelines, the faster their back pain resolves, by quite a bit," says Kurt Hegmann, M.D., director of the University of Utah Rocky Mountain Center for Occupational and Environmental Health.

You should also not take up non-recommended treatments as 65 per cent of people in the University's study did.

Among the nearly 60,000 people whose medical claims were analysed, 14 per cent received non-recommended treatments only,

51 per cent received a mix of non-recommended and recommended treatments, 14 per cent received recommended treatments only, and 21 per cent did not receive any medical intervention.

People who received recommended treatments saw an intermediate benefit, missing only eight workdays within a year as compared to those who exclusively received recommended treatments.

The study was conducted in the U.S., but U.K. medical guidelines to those with persistent lower back pain advise moderate, non-painful exercise, acupuncture, and cognitive therapy - before more serious interventions and checks. In the U.S. a common non-recommended treatment is prescription opioids, which should be discouraged as are addictive and do not resolve underlying issues.

According to the study, when treated correctly with early interventions, opioid prescriptions fell by 86 per cent over nine years.

"The reduction in opioids prescription is particularly impressive," Hegmann says. "In this case, the insurer is likely to not pay for opioids even if they are prescribed. It suggests what's possible when the 'carrot' of good health care is missed and instead the 'stick' of compliance with a guideline is in place."