BMJ 1995;311:569 (26 August)

Letters

Randomised controlled trials of treatment are needed

EDITOR,--The current interest in low back pain1 is to be welcomed, particularly in the light of the doubling of the rate of male sickness and payments of invalidity benefit for spinal disorders in the 10 years to 1991-2.2 The rate of payment of benefit, however, is an unreliable measure of the burden of back pain in the community because it principally measures long term disability, not pain and disability in those who can continue to work or who are economically inactive.

Two key points in the Clinical Standards Advisory Group's recommendations for a revolution in the treatment of low back pain are that physical treatment should be focused on the early stages of the condition to prevent it becoming chronic and that a new specialist back pain rehabilitation service should be developed for patients who have had back pain for over six weeks.2 The clear aim is to reduce long . . . [Full text of this article]


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