History A thorough history and physical examination is paramount to arrive at a diagnosis, and initially imaging is often unnecessary. Patients most often complain of pain in the lumbosacral area. Determine whether pain is exacerbated by movement or by prolonged sitting or standing. Determine the duration of pain. Determine if pain is relieved by lying […]
Category Archives: Back Pain
Background Mechanical low back pain is one of the most common patient complaints expressed to emergency physicians in the United States accounting for more than 6 million cases annually. Approximately two thirds of adults are affected by mechanical low back pain at some point in their lives, making it the second most common complaint in […]
Common causes of low back pain (lumbar backache) include lumbar strain, nerve irritation, lumbar radiculopathy, bony encroachment, and conditions of the bone and joints. Each of these is reviewed below. Lumbar strain (acute, chronic) A lumbar strain is a stretch injury to the ligaments, tendons, and/or muscles of the low back. The stretching incident results […]
It is important to understand that back pain is a symptom of a medical condition, not a diagnosis itself. Medical problems that can cause back pain include the following: Mechanical problems: A mechanical problem is due to the way your spine moves or the way you feel when you move your spine in certain ways. Perhaps […]
(ĐTĐ) – Back pain (also known as “dorsalgia”) is pain felt in the back that usually originates from the muscles, nerves, bones, joints or other structures in the spine. The pain can often be divided into neck pain, upper back pain, lower back pain or tailbone pain. It may have a sudden onset or […]
(ĐTĐ) – In human anatomy, the vertebral column (backbone or spine) is a column usually consisting of 33 vertebrae, the sacrum, intervertebral discs, and the coccyx situated in the dorsal aspect of the torso, separated by spinal discs. It houses and protects the spinal cord in its spinal canal. Curves The vertebral column seen from […]
(ĐTĐ) – Neck pain is an extremely common complaint; some of it is caused by the standard wear-and-tear of aging, but many people can actually prevent it from occurring by making a few simple changes. You have probably heard the warnings about how your office posture is affecting your neck and back. Well, they’re […]
(ĐTĐ) – Many times when you’re in pain, you just want to go to sleep. But for a lot of people, sleep may be causing their pain – one common source of neck pain is poor sleeping posture. You probably don’t think of sleep as active enough to strain your neck, but if you […]
(ĐTĐ) – The word “spondylosis” means a stiffening or fixation of the vertebrae in the back and neck due to a disease process. Spondylosis is the degenerative changes such as degenerating discs and bone spurs. Quite often, these changes are called osteoarthritis. Spondylosis can occur anywhere on the spine: cervical (neck), thoracic (upper/mid back), and […]
(ĐTĐ) – Although medical terms that might confuse many people, cervical spondylosis and radiculopathy have a common link with one another. Understanding one (cervical spondylosis) is needed to understand how the other (radiculopathy) works within contexts involving the former. That’s mainly because cervical spondylosis often plays a role in causing radiculopathy in people. In this […]
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