Definition of Chronic Low Back Pain

With much disagreement about its essential characteristics, chronic low back pain remains a subject of controversy for medical professionals. This can impact how researchers approach the subject and the conclusions they reach.

Criteria

• To qualify as a chronic condition, low back pain must continue for at least three months, must reappear after treatment and must not result from a specific incident.

Misconceptions

• According to the Mayo Clinic, some people tend to believe the back pain they feel soon after doing manual work is a chronic condition. Yet this pain is really just soreness that disappears in days rather than a condition that persists much longer.

Effects

• Doctors at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York say chronic low back pain is a great cost to society because "[it] is the single largest cause of lost work days and lost income. It also accounts for more than 25 percent of all workers' compensation claims."

Controversy

• Because experts disagree with the most common definition, statistics on the prevalence of chronic low back pain differ. Check the data sources behind any study of back pain to see how the study's subjects were classified.

Speculation

• Some researchers speculate that people suffering from chronic low back pain are prone to depression and may even develop a "sick role" which prolongs the illness.