Interventional pain management focused on zygapophysial joint pain: current landscape and future perspectives

Chronic pain is one of the main health problems in the world. But managing chronic pain poses special challenges for healthcare. While interventional pain management - especially when focused on zygapophysial joint pain - have been shown to be able to improve health-related quality of life in a cost-effective manner, many European countries have focused on the bio-psychosocial model and pain rehabilitation programs where the general practitioners in primary care gets a subordinate role instead of the leading role they should have. Based on the experience from pain management during the last two decades in Sweden, a program is suggested based on primary care and controlled by the general practitioners and where interventional pain management is integrated early in the process.