Managing Low Back Pain and Sciatica

Low back pain (LBP) is the leading cause of long term disability worldwide. The lifetime incidence of low back pain is 58-84%, and 11% of men and 16% of women have LBP. It accounts for 7% of GP consultations and results in the loss of 4.1 million working days a year. More than 30% of people still have clinically significant symptoms after a year after onset of sciatica.

This guideline replaces the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guideline on early management of LBP. in adults (2009) and expands its remit. It summarises the updated recommendations from NICE for the assessment and management of LBP and sciatica. For a visual summary, please see infographic. It is to overcome the following: patchy commissioning of back pain pathways, pain management programmes, and poor implementation. These are due to clinicians’ beliefs that previous recommendations were constraining clinical practice.

The full BMJ article can be found here