Computer assisted treatment prediction of low back pain pathologies

The paper presents a fuzzy inference system based prediction with the role to determine the appropriate action for patients that presents lower back pain. If not treated correctly lower back pain can degenerate in various diseases. The system infers three possible actions: (1) spinal cord surgery, (2) medication combined with exercises and (3) no action needed. The system takes in consideration the age and sex of the patient, a pain intensity parameter, the metabolic rate of the patient and mobility parameters from the Zebris Mobility device. In total 243 rules have been formulated but only 21% of the rules suggests surgery. The initial results are promising; there is a correlation of 0.83% between the control results and the results from the system.