Lower back pain causes more disability than any other condition
As new research reveals the devastating toll of disability inflicted by lower back pain, Jeanette Wang looks at a widespread problem
"Most people will suffer from lower back pain at least once in their life," says Dr Michael Tse, assistant director of University of Hong Kong's Institute of Human Performance. "Most" refers to about 80 per cent of adults, according to the Hospital Authority's Smart Patient website.
In fact, an international study published a couple of weeks ago in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases shows that lower back pain causes more disability around the world than any other condition.
Researchers looked at data from the World Health Organisation's Global Burden of Disease 2010 study, which assesses ill health and disability arising from various conditions in 187 countries. These countries were grouped into 21 regions, and the data covers 1990, 2005 and 2010. Of all 291 conditions in the study, lower back pain ranked number one in terms of years lived with disability - 83 million years in total in 2010, to be exact.
The study found almost one in 10 people (9.4 per cent) had lower back pain, and that men were affected more than women (10.1 per cent compared with 8.7 per cent). The condition's prevalence and overall impact increased with age.
Conservative treatment is usually better...The body tends to heal itself
Western Europe had the highest prevalence (15 per cent) and the Caribbean the lowest (6.5 per cent). In East Asia, the region which includes China, prevalence was 6.7 per cent.