Low back pain still being treated incorrectly, often including unnecessary surgery
Millions of people around the world are getting the wrong treatment for low back pain and South Africans are no exception, according to new research from The Lancet. As a result patients are not getting the relief they need and resources are being wasted on interventions that do not work.Worldwide, low back pain is the leading cause of disability, affecting about 540-million people at any one point in time, according to the Lancet series on low back pain, published on Wednesday. In Africa, more than a third of people suffer from some form of back pain at any point in time.Many of these people are being prescribed potentially addictive opioid painkillers and referred for expensive scans and surgeries when their problems could be managed through cheaper, safer and less invasive therapies, said study contributor Quinette Louw, of the division of physiotherapy at Stellenbosch University’s faculty of medicine and health sciences."It’s important to recognise that in most cases low back pa...
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