Doctors are set to start prescribing exercise instead of medication and bed rest for lower back pain sufferers, as new clinical guidelines dismiss traditional treatments as inappropriate for most.
The clinical care standard, released by the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care on Thursday, advocates for a shift away from imaging tests, bed rest, pain medication and surgery.
The treatments are of limited use for managing most people with low back pain, according to the commission, and imaging can lead to unnecessary concern, or the wrong type of care for patients.
Instead, the clinical standard gives health practitioners a road map for how to manage patients’ low back pain episodes early on, pushing for a more effective and less risky approach.
Read more at The West Australian