The World Health Organization (WHO) has just given the green light to a different way of dealing with chronic low back pain.
These guidelines, revealed on December 7, 2023, suggest a significant change in how doctors and others tackle the problem.
The focus is on doing more than just relying on medicine and surgery, looking at the whole picture of a person’s life to find the best solution [1].
What’s different about these guidelines is that they treat chronic low back pain as a complicated issue with many factors.
The WHO wants healthcare providers to personalize their approach, taking into account not only physical pain but also how someone feels mentally and what’s going on in their life.
A key point in these guidelines is encouraging treatments that don’t involve medicine or surgery first.
Instead, they recommend moving more, exercising and getting mental help. This shift agrees with more and more evidence showing that lifestyle changes can sometimes work better than medicine [2].
The guidelines also highlight the importance of educating patients and giving them more control over their treatment.
Knowing more about their condition and actively participating in their care decisions is crucial [3]. This new way of thinking puts the person with back pain at the center of their care, working with healthcare providers.
Work also gets a mention. The guidelines say that the kind of work someone does and how they do it can affect back pain [4].
The WHO suggests changes in the workplace to make it easier for people with chronic low back pain.
The guidelines also encourage the use of technology. Online consultations, mobile apps and virtual support groups are helpful tools, especially for those who live far from healthcare centers.
These WHO guidelines for chronic low back pain are all about trying a new and improved approach.
Instead of always relying on medicine, they suggest looking at the whole person, using non-medical treatments first and letting patients be more involved in their care.
The aim is to make life better for millions of people dealing with chronic low back pain worldwide.
[1] https://www.who.int/news/item/07-12-2023-who-releases-guidelines-on-chronic-low-back-pain
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7092395/
[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6996004/
[4] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/low-back-pain
