Disability Rising Due to Inappropriate Primary Care for Lower Back Pain

Would you go to see an emergency room doctor for treatment of your painful back?

I wouldn't.

Busy emergency room doctors don't want us there either. They are busy saving peoples' lives.

But, this recent report from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) indicates that more people are getting treatment for lower back pain in the emergency room than might be warranted.

Hospitalizations doubled from 1993 to 2008 for patients with back problems.

Hospitalized patients with back pain cost $14,338 while patients without back pain cost $9,055. This may be due to the outlier effect of increasing rates of complex, multi-level spinal fusion surgeries that cost $88,000.

"...hospitalizations for back problems in general were more expensive than all other inpatient stays..."

The aggregate costs for inpatient stays principally for back problems was over $9.5 billion in 2008, making it the 9th most expensive condition treated in U.S. hospitals.

Disability Rising

A study from North Carolina followed-up on 5,357 households to calculate the trend in disability due to lower back problems. From 1992 to 2006 chronic, impairing lower back pain rose in North Carolina from 3.9% to 10.2% of the population.

The study authors speculated the causes might be the following:

• Rising rates of Obesity: the number of obese people in North Carolina has increased from 13.4% to 26.6% of the population. Obesity is defined a Body Mass Index greater than 30.0 (weight in kilograms per height in meters squared).
• Increases in depression prevalence: rates of depression doubled from 3.3% to 7.06% through 2002. Chronic pain and depression are linked and individuals with depression are 3 times more likely to develop lower back pain.
• Medicalization of lower back pain: competing healthcare professionals, some advertising on the Internet, have increased public awareness of treatment possibilities despite the fact that many of these treatments are expensive and offer no better long-term improvement than no treatment.

The most at-risk group of North Carolinians are the age group from 45 to 54 years: they became chronically painful at the highest rate of any cohort. Their incidence increased from 15.2% to 26.7% over the time period.

Heavy, Sad and High Tech

According to a recent report in the Journal of the American College of Radiology up to 50% of diagnostic imaging tests are unnecessary and don't add to the patient's improvement.

Imaging scans cost $100 billion annually and these costs are growing 17% per year.

Physician could improve their targeted care of emergent conditions and better serve patient in need by reducing unnecessary imaging for lower back pain.

The following guideline from the American College of Radiology shows a clinical summary of imaging advice.

Further, physicians could reduce the medicalization of common, age-related physical impairments associated with lower back pain by encouraging their patients to exercise and take care of themselves before problems arise.

Can physical therapists diagnose depression?

Mary began crying in physical therapy the other day.

Tears streamed down her face as she told me the story of her automobile accident and her subsequent attempts at recovery.

She told me how difficult work and school had become - sitting and studying were too painful with whiplash and headaches.

Sleep was interrupted by pain and she got up every morning not rested, with dark, red circles under her eyes.

"I just can't go on like this", she said.

Physical therapists treat chronic pain patients whose somatic symptoms may contain an emotional component.

Physical therapists can consider the whole person when we assess the patient and we can screen for depression by asking two questions:

1. "During the past month, have you often been bothered by feeling down, depressed or hopeless?"


2. "During the past month, have you often been bothered by little interest or pleasure in doing things?"
   

These questions are taken from the Primary Care Evaluation of Mental Disorders Procedure (PRIME-MD) and are referenced in Physical Therapy Journal (December 2004 Haggman et al).

In The Cultural Context of Depression by Robert J. Hedaya, MD asserts:

"...depression is rapidly becoming the second leading cause of disability in the world."

Physical therapists treat disability using, primarily, physical interventions (eg: exercise, manual therapy, modalities, etc.).

If we try to treat problems that are emotional with physical interventions we risk making the conclusion that our interventions are ineffective.

It may be appropriate to refer our patient to a professional with training and credentials to treat depression if our screening tests are positive.

Mary answered yes to both of my evidence-based screening questions. I called her primary care physician who arranged for a referral to a physician specializing in depression.

Mary is continuing physical therapy with concurrent management of her depressive symptoms.

Does depression affect physical therapy outcomes?

I've not seen the literature that quantifies the effect of depression on physical therapy outcomes but the prudent clinician should bear the depressive diagnosis in mind when designing a restorative plan of care.

Physical therapists can diagnose the link between depression and Mary's activities:

• sitting
  
• studying
  
• sleeping

...by using a decision-making framework like the International Classification of Function (ICF) disablement model.

	ICF descriptor	ICF code
Body Functions
	Pain in Head and Neck	b28010
	Regulation of Emotion	b1521
	Psychomotor control (agitation)	b1470
Activities & Participation
	Maintaining a lying position	d4150
	Maintaining a sitting position	d4159

By studying the outcome of Mary's therapy health policy-makers will understand the impact of depression on physical therapy outcomes overall.

Adding depression to 'risk adjusted' outcome models prevents the mistaken belief that physical therapy treatments are ineffective for patients like Mary.

Adding depression to the model assumes physical therapists can assess the condition initially.

I think we can.

It all begins with your diagnosis.