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The Promising Approach of a New MRI Imaging Technique That Can Give Accurate Back Pain Diagnosis

The Promising Approach of a New MRI Imaging Technique That Can Give Accurate Back Pain Diagnosis

Published By HealthcareLink Support , 4 years ago

Recent research about MRI scanning published in JOR Spine. The research dwells upon correct diagnosis and back pain treatment. The study involved the comparison scans brought by the new technique and the existing MRI techniques. The new technique brought about a 97% match in contrast to the existing technique, which can garner a 70% accuracy rate.

According to Dr. Kyle Sheldrick, the lead author of the study, the research is a promising alternative for doctors and radiologists to accurately diagnose back pains. The research provided that back pain affects one of six Australians. However, in 95% of these cases the causes are unidentifiable. Experts believe that back pains are caused by degeneration of the spinal discs but the existing examination for such issues does not work well.

Current techniques on determining the condition of spine discs can cause confusion because the conditions of the discs can be misleading and cannot even provide enough diagnosis for the disc condition and its effects on the person. Considering the promising results provided by the research, the Australian Physiotherapy Association (APA) maintains a critical view on the proposed technique. 

According to the APA National Chair of Pain group, Dianne Wilson, the discrepancies in diagnosis and treating back pains are brought about by pain complexity and the lacking discourse on the poor correlation between pain and tissue damage. The issue of back pain shouldn't be reduced to merely technological inadequacy because it is far beyond it.

One of the reasons why APA is in a critical position to the research finding is that the scan results it produced do not reliably measure back pain in general.

Ms. Wilson told that back pain assessment, as well as chronic pain, should not be articulated through a simplistic and indirect assessment of the condition at all, similar to what was proposed by the research. Pain should be assessed as a multi-factorial problem that necessitates the coordination among GPs and practitioners.

Recent developments in pain science effectively provided sufficient and reliable knowledge about chronic pain but this does not necessarily entail that new scanning technology would fix the problem generally. The best way to deal with the matter of pain in general, may it be chronic or acute pain is the multidisciplinary approach to it involving various practitioners from different branches of medical practice.

Professor Lorimer Mortimer provided second thoughts on the ideas forwarded by Prof. Mortimer elaborating that clinical response is the necessary approach to the problem in general. New protocol measures should be similarly approved and considered for the benefit of the musculoskeletal industry.

Source / Image: CC-BY-00

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