| Diagnosis and Management of Low Back Pain |
| Jae Hong Jang, and Byung-Jo Kim |
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| Copyright © 2012 The Korean Society of Clinical Neurophysiology |
| This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited. |
| ABSTRACT |
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Low back pain is a common clinical condition with heterogeneous causes and challenges to manage. High prevalence andnumerous assessments result in an enormous socioeconomic burden. Clinician must conduct efficient and stepwise evaluationprocess to rule out serious spinal pathology, neurologic involvement, and identify risk factors for chronicity. The processcan be achieved through the focused history taking and physical examination. Certain factors related to serious spinalpathology include age (>50 years), trauma, unexplained fever, recent urinary or skin infection, unrelenting night or rest pain,unexplained weight loss, osteoporosis, immunosuppression, steroid use, and widespread neurological symptoms. In non-specificlow back pain, diagnostic imaging and laboratory studies are often unnecessary and can disturb an appropriate management.For the management of acute low back pain, patient education and medication such as acetaminophen, non-steroidalanti-inflammatory drugs, and muscle relaxants are recommended. For chronic low back pain, behavior therapy, back exercise,and spinal manipulation are beneficial. The evidence based approach could improve success rate of management, result inprevention of acute low back pain from being chronic intractable pain. |
| Key words:
Low back pain, Diagnosis, Management |
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