New therapeutic strategy for chronifying back pain. The multimodal, interdisciplinary therapeutic program

The epidemic-like rise in chronic low back pain in western industrial nations is less an expression of a medical than a psychosocial phenomenon. Differentiation between acute, chronic or chronifying pain is of crucial importance for therapeutic procedures. Pain syndromes in the muscular-skeletal system tend to become chronic to a far larger extent than expected. More than 80 % of low back pain represents a functional pain syndrome and does not show any pathoanatomical correlate. Pain existing independently seems to be predestined by a somatic and psychosocial deconditioning syndrome. Those at risk of chronifying pain or those whose pain is already chronic should be given an interdisciplinary, multimodal therapeutic program. A pilot study was carried out in our clinic: multidisciplinary treatment was given to our patients (of which over 90 % belonged to stages II and III on the Gerbershagen scale) and the result was significant improvement in the measurements of pain intensity, sensoric and affective pain perception, their list of complaints, the common scale of depression and the pain disability index. Taking previously published studies into consideration, it is safe to say that a multidisciplinary, multimodal program of therapy even after stay in hospital results in considerable relief of pain and improvement in the ability to cope with the pain for patients with chronified pain syndromes in the muscular-skeletal system which are resistant to treatment on an outpatient basis.