Back pain and physical disbility

Cases studies Usefulness of the scales Back pain and physical disability Scales shown; criteria for selection, meaning and use of the provided information Scales to measure pain intensity Scales to measure degree of physical disability Scales to measure quality of life

Back pain can interfere with some daily activities and result in physical disability.

But if has been shown that pain and disability are distinct aspects that are not correlated:

• There are patients with very intense back pain and little disability and vice versa.
• The risk factors for pain and for disability are different. In general, biomechanical factors have greater influence in the risk of the appearance of pain an psychosocial factors in the persistence of disability.
• Some treatments can improve the pain more than the disability while others are more effective on disability than pain. For example, analgesics are more effective in treating pain than disability, physical exercise is more effective in treating disability, and neurotherapeutic intervention is effective on both pain and disability.
• Pain intensity can be diminished without altering the degree of disability and vice versa.

For this reason, it is a mistake to use scales measuring pain in order to assess physical disability or vice versa. Each aspect should be measured by its own scale.