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General Principles in Older Adults
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Back pain is 1 of the top 3 reasons for physician visits by older adults. Of the 1037 surviving subjects from the original Framingham Heart Study cohort (ages 68–100 years), 22% had back pain on most days. Although back pain in older adults is prevalent, costly, and leads to considerable morbidity, much of the literature has focused on younger populations with this condition.
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Back pain is often categorized as acute (lasts less than 4 weeks), subacute (lasts between 4 and 12 weeks), or chronic (lasts longer than 3 months). Although much of the literature evaluates chronic symptoms, a recent article using longitudinal data reported that most back pain in older adults has a recurrent or episodic course. Understanding the various patterns of back pain in older persons is important as prevention and treatment planning may differ. Table 66–1 identifies the terminology used to describe back pain.
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In older individuals, there are several specific causes for back pain (eg, lumbar spinal stenosis, osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures, and sacral fractures) that are less common in younger individuals. Systemic conditions, such as malignancy and infections, although rarely the cause of back pain, are more common in older compared to younger age groups. One of the most challenging aspects of assessing and managing back pain is identifying the source(s) of pain in the older adult who often has multiple musculoskeletal comorbidities (eg, trochanteric bursitis, hip osteoarthritis, multilevel lumbar degenerative changes, and lumbar stenosis). ...