Back pain rarely heals quickly
Published: Tuesday, Jun 4th 2024, 08:20
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Back pain sufferers need patience above all else. A long-term Swiss study involving 176 people found that it made no difference to the severity and duration of the pain whether the sufferers had undergone physiotherapy or medical treatment or not.
In the study supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) characterized common courses of pain. The aim was to develop more individualized treatments, as the SNSF announced on Tuesday.
The researchers identified four typical courses: In more than half of the test subjects, the pain fluctuated between moderate and mild over the course of the year. Around seven percent experienced fluctuations between moderate and severe. One third experienced the pain as consistently moderate. And for around six percent, the pain was gone after one year.
"This shows that the healing of back pain or the development of chronic complaints does not usually follow a straight path," Sabina Hotz, Professor of Physiotherapy Science, was quoted as saying in the press release. The expectation that an improvement will occur after just a few weeks is rarely fulfilled.
According to the study, treatment does not always contribute to faster healing, Hotz explained. It is sufficient for those affected to take it easy and then return to normal activities.
Mild painkillers could help to make the situation more bearable, it said. With a few exceptions - such as severe pain that lasts for weeks - expensive investigations such as magnetic resonance imaging are not necessary or helpful. Anyone who experiences severe pain at the beginning or repeatedly should seek treatment from the outset.
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