Prognostic factors for pain chronicity in low back pain: a systematic review

Low back pain is the leading cause for years lived in disability. Most people with acute low back pain improve rapidly, but 4% to 25% of patients become chronic. Since the previous systematic reviews on the subject, a large number of new studies have been conducted. The objective of this article was to review the evidence of the prognostic factors behind nonspecific chronic low back pain. A systematic literature search was performed without date limitation from the MEDLINE, Cochrane library, and Medic databases. Specific inclusion criteria were used, and risk factors before the onset of chronic symptoms were searched. Study quality was assessed by 2 independent reviewers. One hundred eleven full articles were read for potential inclusion, and 25 articles met all the inclusion criteria. One study was rated as good quality, 19 studies were rated as fair quality, and 5 articles were rated as poor quality. Higher pain intensity, higher body weight, carrying heavy loads at work, difficult working positions, and depression were the most frequently observed risk factors for chronic low back pain. Maladaptive behavior strategies, general anxiety, functional limitation during the episode, smoking, and particularly physical work were also explicitly predictive of chronicity. According to this systematic review, several prognostic factors from the biomechanical, psychological and psychosocial point of view are significant for chronicity in low back pain … MORE

Direct and mediated effects of treatment context on low back pain outcome: a prospective cohort study

Digital health technologies for osteopaths and allied healthcare service providers: A scoping review

Effect of osteopathic manipulative therapy on pulmonary function testing in children with asthma

Central sensitisation in chronic pain conditions: latest discoveries and their potential for precision medicine

Chronic pain is a leading cause of disability globally and associated with enormous health-care costs. The discrepancy between the extent of tissue damage and the magnitude of pain, disability, and associated symptoms represents a diagnostic challenge for rheumatology specialists. Central sensitisation, defined as an amplification of neural signalling within the CNS that elicits pain hypersensitivity, has been investigated as a reason for this discrepancy. Features of central sensitisation have been documented in various pain conditions common in rheumatology practice, including fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, upper extremity tendinopathies, headache, and spinal pain. Within individual pain conditions, there is substantial variation among patients in terms of presence and magnitude of central sensitisation, stressing the importance of individual assessment. Central sensitisation predicts poor treatment outcomes in multiple patient populations. The available evidence supports various pharmacological and non-pharmacological strategies to reduce central sensitisation and to improve patient outcomes in several conditions commonly seen in rheumatology practice. These data open up new treatment perspectives, with the possibility for precision pain medicine treatment according to pain phenotyping as a logical next step. With this view, studies suggest the possibility of matching non-pharmacological approaches, or medications, or both to the central sensitisation pain phenotypes … MORE

Sham treatment effects in manual therapy trials on back pain patients: a systematic review and pairwise meta-analysis

The objective of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to assess the effects and reliability of sham procedures in manual therapy (MT) trials in the treatment of back pain (BP) in order to provide methodological guidance for clinical trial development … MORE

Patient reported outcomes in a large cohort of patients receiving osteopathic care in the United Kingdom

The use of Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) to evaluate care is being advocated increasingly in clinical settings. Electronic data capture is both resource and environmentally friendly and convenient. The purpose of this study was to test and implement a nationwide system to collect routine PROM data from osteopathic patients using a web and mobile app … MORE

Cost comparison of osteopathic manipulative treatment for patients with chronic low back pain

Chronic low back pain (cLBP) is the second leading cause of disability in the United States, with significant physical and financial implications. Development of a multifaceted treatment plan that is cost effective and optimizes patients’ ability to function on a daily basis is critical. To date, there have been no published prospective studies comparing the cost of osteopathic manipulative treatment to that of standard care for patients with cLBP. The objectives of this study were to contrast the cost for standard of care treatment (SCT) for cLBP with standard of care plus osteopathic manipulative treatment (SCT + OMT) … MORE

An international profile of the practice of osteopaths: a systematic review of surveys