Evidence Based Rehab

More surgery, more drugs, and more injections are not what the doctor ordered.

Tallahassee, Florida, May 20, 2008 – When it comes to chronic back pain management patients should know that “less is more.” The American Pain Society at their annual meeting unveiled a current review on invasive procedures for the treatment of chronic low back. The scientific review concluded that most invasive interventions, including spinal joint injections, radiofrequency denervation, intradiscal electrothermal therapy demonstrated no evidence of effectiveness. Furthermore, surgical procedures for chronic low back pain demonstrated only small improvement in pain and disability but were accompanied by considerable risk.

"The expert panel reaffirms its previous recommendation that all low-back pain patients stay active and talk honestly with their physicians about self care and other interventions. "In general, non-invasive therapies supported by evidence showing benefits should be tried before considering interventional therapies or surgery," said Chou."

“The American Pain Society panel has acknowledged the central role of an active physical therapy program in managing low back pain patients,” noted Timothy W. Flynn PT, PhD, President of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Manual Physical Therapists. “The key in chronic low back pain is avoiding too much medicine. There is no magic bullet but a combination of hands on care and an active exercise approach is the best solution.”

Labels: AAOMPT, evidence based medicine, Healthcare, LBP, Low back pain, physical therapy, public relations

Iam following the lead of the bloggers over at Evidence in Motion and switching to using Disqus as my comments posting and administrative tool. I believe it will help the flow of comments and allow me more latitude in moderating the comments. Please let me know what you think - good, bad, indifferent, or other.

Labels: comments

Google has released their online health information service. You can navigate to it by clicking here. While I fully support individuals taking positive steps in understanding and becoming a participant in their healthcare, I hope this service is just a step for the layman to organize their knowledge of their health and not a step turn over control of a patient record to the individual themselves.

The legal ramifications of how to practice when the individual has complete control of how and what is entered into their health record is frightening.

Labels: Direct access, google, Healthcare, Open Access

Isn't the internet great? Now you can receive consultations for sacroiliac pain over the phone. While I agree general advice can be delivered via telecommunications (especially with an established patient) it seems to be a stretch to do the same for low back/SI pain. As PT's our greatest tools are our hands and our minds. Seems this patient care approach is eliminating 1/2 of those tools. What do you think?

Experiencing Sacroiliac Pain? Our expert clinicians are now available to you for a phone consultation regarding your pain and treatment options.

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Labels: Healthcare, LBP, Low back pain