Acute pain in the lower back, better known as lumbago, generates functional limitations in the patient to carry out his routine activities. The psychological repercussions are added to the physical repercussions, according to a multi-institutional team that has demonstrated the relationship between this pathology and depression in elderly people.

Elderly patients with subacute low back pain are more likely to suffer from depressive symptoms, according to research carried out, among others, by the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM).

“This association has already been widely studied, especially in chronic pain and in adult subjects, but the relationship was unknown in elderly people, who have a higher prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders,” said Ricardo Becerro de Bengoa and David Rodríguez Sanz, researchers from the Faculty of Nursing, Physiotherapy and Podiatry of the UCM and authors of the study published in Rehabilitation Nursing.

To carry out the study, the researchers worked with a sample of 152 adults aged 65 and over divided into two groups: patients with chronic low back pain and patients without pathology. All of them were given a questionnaire to identify a score of symptoms of depression, which included hopelessness, suicidality, irritability, negative conception of the image itself, problems sleeping or weight loss and appetite.

Towards new treatments

The next step, the researchers advance, is the realization of interventional studies on this population. “Specifically, physical therapy, psychological interventions and therapeutic exercise appear to be promising treatments to reduce depression scores in elderly people suffering from subacute low back pain,” added Cesar Calvo Lobo and Marta Elena Losa Iglesias, researchers at the Institute of Biomedicine of the ULE and the Rey Juan Carlos University (URJC), respectively.

On the other hand, Patricia Palomo López, researcher at the University of Extremadura, and Daniel López López, researcher at the University of A Coruña (UDC), said that “the cases of elderly people with lumbago in the subacute period have to be detected in order to refer these subjects to the treatments or interventions described above, in order to avoid their chronification and establishment over time.”

In addition to the ULE and the UCM, the University of A Coruña, the Rey Juan Carlos University, the European University of Madrid and the University of Extremadura are participating in the study.

 

Source: SINC