Yearly Archives: 2016

Long-term Trajectories of Back Pain: Cohort Study With 7-year Follow-up

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SOURCE:   BMJ Open. 2013 (Dec 11); 3 (12): e003838

Kate M Dunn, Paul Campbell, and Kelvin P Jordan

Arthritis Research UK Primary Care Centre,
Institute of Primary Care and Health Sciences,
Keele University,
Newcastle, Staffordshire, UK.

OBJECTIVE:   To describe long-term trajectories of back pain.

DESIGN:   Monthly data collection for 6 months at 7-year follow-up of participants in a prospective cohort study.

SETTING:   Primary care practices in Staffordshire, UK.

PARTICIPANTS:   228 people consulting their general practitioners with back pain, on whom information on 6-month back pain trajectories had been collected during 2001-2003, and who had valid consent and contact details in 2009-2010, were contacted. 155 participants (68% of those contacted) responded and provided sufficient data for primary analyses.

OUTCOME MEASURES:   Trajectories based on patients’ self-reports of back pain were identified using longitudinal latent class analysis. Trajectories were characterised using information on disability, psychological status and presence of other symptoms.

RESULTS:   Four clusters with different back pain trajectories at follow-up were identified:

(1)   no or occasional pain
(2)   persistent mild pain
(3)   fluctuating pain and
(4)   persistent severe pain.

Trajectory clusters differed significantly from each other in terms of disability, psychological status and other symptoms. Most participants remained in a similar trajectory as 7 years previously (weighted κ 0.54; 95% CI 0.42 to 0.65).

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Trajectories of Low Back Pain

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SOURCE:   Best Pract Res Clin Rheumatol. 2013 (Oct); 27 (5): 601–612

Iben Axén, Charlotte Leboeuf-Yde

Unit of Intervention & Implementation Research,
Institute of Environmental Medicine,
Karolinska Institutet,
Nobels väg 13, S-171 77 Stockholm, Sweden

Low back pain is not a self-limiting problem, but rather a recurrent and sometimes persistent disorder. To understand the course over time, detailed investigation, preferably using repeated measurements over extended periods of time, is needed. New knowledge concerning short-term trajectories indicates that the low back pain ‘episode’ is short lived, at least in the primary care setting, with most patients improving. Nevertheless, in the long term, low back pain often runs a persistent course with around two-thirds of patients estimated to be in pain after 12 months. Some individuals never have low back pain, but most have it on and off or persistently. Thus, the low back pain ‘condition’ is usually a lifelong experience. However, subgroups of patients with different back pain trajectories have been identified and linked to clinical parameters. Further investigation is warranted to understand causality, treatment effect and prognostic factors and to study the possible association of trajectories with pathologies.

From the FULL TEXT Article:

Introduction

Until recently, low back pain (LBP) was believed to be a self-limiting condition, much like the common cold. The European guidelines for the management of acute LBP state that 90% of patients will recover within 6 weeks. [1]

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