Low back pain risk among older adults

Abstract

Purpose: Low back pain is well documented to be an extremely common health problem in all decades worldwide. Back pain affects 80% of people over the age of 30 at some point in their lives. The aim of this study was to evaluate the low back pain risk among older adults.

Materials and Methods: Five hundred fiftysix elderly people (279 females; 277 males; mean age: 71.45 +/- 5.99 yrs.) included the study. The pain intensity was measured using by the Visual Analog scale (VAS). The low back pain risk ratio of the older adults was evaluated using by a Low Back Pain Risk Scale.

Results: While 60.4% of the participants reported low back pain (n: 335), the rest of the sample did not report low back pain (n: 221; 39.6%). The mean pain intensity of the participants with low back pain was 4.43 +/- 1.9 cm. When the risk of low back pain in all participants was examined, it was found that 39.5% of elderly participants without low back pain were at potential risk and 47% of elderly participants with low back pain were at significant risk.

Conclusion: The findings indicate that mostly older Turkish adults who did not report low back pain are at risk in terms of low back pain. That's why older adults should be assessed for chronic low back pain to improve their quality of life.