Incidence of back pain increases while spending increases
"Back Pain Spending Surge Shows No Benefit - Americans are spending more money than ever to treat spine problems, but their backs aren’t getting any better," says the New York Times
And from the Journal Watch
The dramatic increase in pharmacy expenses — mostly attributable to expensive new drugs such as gabapentin, fentanyl, and time-released oxycodone — has not resulted in a corresponding improvement in functional status for these patients.
I have a serious problem with this type of reporting. This was a compilation of surveys and did not provide evidence that treatments were not effective. But what evidence does it provide?
Again, there was nothing in my read of the report that indicated that drug treatments had no impact on the patient’s functional status. But reporters and even researchers invovled in the report, used the report to present their opinons as research based fact.
The report in the Journal of the American Medical Association, was actually quite limited in it’s scope but found that United States spending on spine treatments totaled nearly $86 billion in 2005, a rise of 65 percent from 1997, after adjusting for inflation. Even so, the proportion of people with self reported impaired function due to spine problems actually increased during the period, even after controlling for an aging population.
There is no question that we spend alot on spinal problems and that the amount is increasing.
The authors estimate that the total national medical cost of treating :
- Spine problems is $86 billion
- Cancer care costs $89 billion
- Diabetes care costs $98 billion
That the incidence spinal problems are increasing, could be attributed to lifestyle and attitudual issues as easily as to the effectiveness or lack of effectiveness of various treatments for spinal problems. More to the point might be that the use of drug to temporarily mask the systoms certainly should not be expected to reduce the level of people reporting impairment due to back pain.
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One Comment
Write a Comment»Sure, it can be expensive to treat your back pain, but people should search for the alternative methods.
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