Chronic low back pain: progress in therapy.

Low back pain is a common complaint in the primary care setting. Although most patients with acute low back pain will improve with conservative treatment, back pain often recurs, and a subset of patients will progress to chronic and sometimes disabling symptoms. A variety of treatments have been used for chronic low back pain; the best evidence supports intensive rehabilitation programs that include tailored exercise therapy in conjunction with cognitive behavioral interventions and education.

A spatial analysis of county-level variation in hospitalization rates for low back problems in North Carolina.

Hospitalization rates for low back problems vary widely. In previous non-spatial analyses, population-level socioeconomic and health resource characteristics have explained little of the variation in rates. This study examines geographic variation in hospitalization rates for low back problems while controlling for spatial dependence in the data.