Clinical Review of Low Back Pain Patients In Hong Kong

Abstract

Low Back Pain (LBP) is one of the most common symptoms reported by Hong Kong people, and one of the leading causes for individuals to seek medical care. The present study investigated the characteristics of LBP in a group of highly selective patients in order to advance the understanding of factors leading to LBP, treatments, and etiology which are important for public health policy, clinical and research reasons. A total of 200 patients admitted to the Duchess of Kent children's Hospital from 1994 to 2000 were recruited for this study. The medical records of those patients, from which clinical findings and personal data of interests were collected, were carefully studied. The data were analysed and compared with previous findings. Treatment distribution, history of injury, post- treatment functional ability and pain level, recurrent rate, and distribution of etiology were analysed from the collected data. 80% of patients were treated conservatively. 24% of patients reported a history of injury. Around 40% of patients found improve and relief on their functional ability and pain syndromes respectively after treatment. The recurrent rate of LBP after treatment was found to be 7%. The majority of patients appeared to be either non-specific (56%) or discogenic (31%) in origin. Detail investigation of LBP may help finding of origins of syndrome, thus lowering the percentage of non-specific LBP. Moreover, current conservative treatments are helpful in stopping the deterioration of functional ability and pain syndromes. Further research is necessary.