Back pain, a communicable disease?
original abstract †Abstracts here may not perfectly match originals, for a variety of technical and practical reasons. Some abstacts are truncated for my purposes here, if they are particularly long-winded and unhelpful. I occasionally add clarifying notes. And I make some minor corrections.
BACKGROUND: Back pain (BP) is a frequent disorder affecting currently up to 40% of adults in Western Europe. Most of it is said to be 'non-specific', i.e. lacking an obvious patho-anatomical explanation. It is seldom the consequence of a contagious disease caused by microorganisms. This does not exclude it from being communicable if 'communicable' is to refer to something being transmitted by sharing or exchanging information.
AIM: To propose the hypothesis of BP being a communicable disease.
METHODS AND RESULTS: We base our hypothesis on a reanalysis of five German health surveys. They show a wide gap in BP prevalence between West and East Germany early after reunification. The gap consistently decreased to nearly zero in 2003. Work disability data followed a comparable course.
DISCUSSION: Various processes may have contributed to the observed changes. Our hypothesis is corroborated by experimental research showing that BP-related beliefs, attitudes and behaviour could positively be influenced by media campaigns and by insights from another recent epidemic.
This page is part of the PainScience BIBLIOGRAPHY, which contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers & others sources. It’s like a highly specialized blog. A few highlights:
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