Understanding The Association Between Low Back Pain And Risk Factors For Chronic Disease
Funder
National Health and Medical Research Council
Funding Amount
$314,644.00
Summary
Being overweight or obese and smoking are believed to be significant contributors to the development of long term back pain. However we know little about the relationship between low back pain and these risks for chronic disease. This research aims to understand these relationships by testing if weight and smoking programs reduce low back pain disability in overweight or smoking patients, and secondly if back pain also influences risk factors for chronic disease.
As many as 50% of patients having surgery take medications unrelated to their surgery and up to 46% of patients have their medications stopped at surgery. Patients who take regular medications unrelated to their surgery are 2.7 times more at risk of complications post surgery than those who do not take medications. As time without regular medication increase, so do the post surgery complication rate. This project aims to improve the use of patientsÍ regular medications at the time of surgery.