[Why intensive rehabilitation of patients with chronic back problems?]

When patients with chronic back trouble are improved after intensive rehabilitation, in all likelihood it is due more to changes in pain behaviour than to physiological effects of treatment. The Copenhagen Spine Center at the Danish national hospital, Rigshospitalet has launched an eight hours a day, three-week programme of cardiovascular fitness, progressive weight training, stretching, ergonomics, psychology and an extended back school, with a view to modifying the self-image and pain behaviour of long term sick-certificated patients with back problems, in order to enable them to return to work.