Prescribing conservative treatment for low back pain

Abstract

As clinicians, prescribing conservative treatment is an essential part of our daily activity. Prescriptions are based on knowledge, and evidences are available for the different therapies in LBP. However, evidence is just a measure of the generalizability, or external validity, of the efficacy of a given treatment. In other terms, how well some form of treatment performs for an average patient or a group of patients, a measure usually defined within the frame of a scientific study. In an era of limited healthcare resources, all our patients would be ideally average, and treatments would be evidence-based. Only treatments demonstrated to be effective would be considered and used for LBP, as for any other condition. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.