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Prognosis
Cohort study
Low back pain has a poor prognosis for recovery among seniors
  1. Wolf E Mehling
  1. Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA
  1. Correspondence to : Dr Wolf E Mehling, Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of California San Francisco, 1545 Divisadero Street, 4th floor, San Francisco, CA 94907, USA; Wolf.Mehling{at}ucsf.edu

https://doi.org/10.1136/ebmed-2015-110209

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    Commentary on: Rundell SD, Sherman KJ, Heagerty PJ, et al. The clinical course of pain and function in older adults with a new primary care visit for back pain. J Am Geriatr Soc 2015;63:524–30.OpenUrlCrossRefPubMed

    Context

    Little is known about the prognosis of low back pain (LBP) in the elderly. In 2006, two epidemiological studies from Italy and Israel reported alarming prevalence rates between 31.5% and 58%. Only one of these was a study with longitudinal data: among 277 surveyed seniors the prevalence of chronic back pain increased from 44% at 70 years old to 58% at 77 years old.1 Larger prognostic studies in the elderly are needed. This study by Rundell and colleagues is a large longitudinal study and a major step in addressing this …

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    Footnotes

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.