SEARCHING FOR A CONSENSUS MODEL IN DEALING WITH BACK PAIN - Abstract
A complaint, an injury, a therapy. Paradoxically, the constant
progress in understanding back lesions and their biomechanics
during the last 30 years has not resulted in a decrease in the
incidence of low back complaints. On the other hand, cost of this
invalidity due to low back pains are increasing. Organic lesions,
the pronounced nature of which has been radiologically stated,
do not always manifest themselves through commensurate
symptoms and/ or functional problems (1). The findings from
CT or MRI examination, or from operative surgery, are often less
corroborative for pronounced functional complaints. Despite
a!therapy”, an act performed on a suspected underlying organic
injury, complaints often persist or become worse, and the
degree of invalidity increases. Patients without verified organic
injury run the risk of becoming stigmatized. Conventional care
providers, who have learned during their training to treat the
underlying lesions, are stunned baffled when it appears the back
pain and back lesions are not interlinked. A different approach
could be based on regarding pain not only as a sign of tissue
injury but also as suffering in the broadest sense of the word.
The emphasis is then placed on invalidity and function recovery.
Medical science should thus abandon the role imposed upon it
of helping to rid the world of pain, where false hopes are often
raised (1).