Soldiers Who Suffer Back Pain Are Unlikely To Return To Duty

San Francisco Chiropractor Comments:

I came across an interesting post on www.sciencedaily.com about soldiers who suffer back pain while on duty in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan. The name of the article is  Back Pain Permanently Sidelines Soldiers At War. Here is an excerpt from the article:  

Cohen explains that the reasons why few military personnel return to their units after leaving with back pain may simply be a reflection of the outcomes for back pain in civilian life. "Back pain has notoriously low success rates for treatment," he says. The biggest predictors of a poor outcome, he said, are psychosocial factors. People who are depressed or anxious, who cope poorly with stress, who are unhappy in their jobs, and those with other psychological issues are more likely to remain disabled by back pain. Cohen, who is also director of chronic pain research at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, said those with back pain who remain in the country where they are deployed may be more motivated to stay on the job or are more satisfied with their role in the military. 

The military needs to find a way to get soldiers with back pain back to their units wherever possible, Cohen says. He suggests that could be accomplished if there were more pain management options in Iraq or Afghanistan, following the model used for soldiers with symptoms of combat stress. When those symptoms are treated at mental health clinics on base, approximately 95 percent of service members returned to their units. When treated in a transitional unit in nearby Kuwait, the figure was around 50 percent. When sent to Germany, fewer than 10 percent returned.

 The article talks about combat stress and the physiological component of back pain...along with the notorious poor outcomes for back pain treatment.

My Take: It is common for back pain to be the physical manifestation of psychological stress...and god knows the stress these soldiers are under. It should be a foregone conclusion that some will handle it better than others. And, I don't think we need back pain research or any kind of research to tell us that the farther a soldier is taken away from the source of stress, the less likely they are to want to return...would you?

Anyway, war is not pretty, and we need to make sure that anyone brave enough to deal with it while defending our country gets the health care they need...while they are on active duty...and after-wards...forever.

Dr. Eben Davis is clinic director of Executive Express Chiropractic in downtown San Francisco. To schedule an appointment call 415-392-2225.  

Comments

[Back Muscle Pain]

I know a lot of people that are in the military and many of them have been over to Iraq and Afghanistan. On top of back injuries and just plain back pain. Many of them suffer from knee pain . This has to do with all the miles they walk carrying all that gear which weighs so much. God bless any soldier serving in the military.