Acute Medicine | Neurology | Management of acute back pain

Management of Acute Back Pain
Session Overview
Description
This session presents a methodical approach to the evaluation and management of patients presenting with acute back pain; it includes supportive diagnostic imaging. As departments will have set trauma guidelines, the focus is mainly on non-traumatic back pain.

Learning Objectives
By the end of this session you will be able to:

• Describe the common methods of diagnosis used in the case of acute back pain
• Explain the causes of, and how to examine for, cauda equina syndrome
• Describe the general management principles for benign acute back pain

Acute back pain is a common clinical presentation encountered by both primary care physicians and hospital doctors alike. There are several types of back pain. In up to 85% of cases, the precise cause of an episode of back pain is not identified and is presumed to be the result of a straining injury. The vast majority (90%) of these patients experience spontaneous resolution of symptoms within 6 weeks.

A minority of patients will have a serious spinal pathology (e.g. malignancy, infection or cauda equina syndrome) requiring expedient diagnosis and management. Such pathologies warrant further specialised investigations and it is usually possible to identify such patients via a diligent history and examination.