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Back pain and its resulting disabilities, whether permanent or temporary, have significant consequences on individuals, families, and society. Over three quarters of the whole population will have back pain at some time in their life, with prevalence of 15–30% in adults. Back pain is the most frequent activity-limiting complaint in the young and middle aged, one of the commonest reasons for medical consultation, and the most frequent occupational injury. In the industrial world, an estimated 2–5% of the population have chronic back problems and many are permanently disabled due to them.
The economic impact on society for the tangible expenditures (i.e. medical care, indemnity payment) and the intangible costs (e.g. production loss, employee retraining, administrative expenses, increased consumer costs, and litigation) were estimated in North America alone to be well over USD 50 billion per year in 2000. The indirect costs of disability due to low back pain are enormous, and exceed the direct costs of medical diagnosis and treatment.
A few specific conditions such as disk herniation, spondylolisthesis, and spinal stenosis, are reasonably well defined and understood, but for the vast majority of patients with back pain there is only fragmented knowledge and no effective hypothesis for the cause. Spinal disorders and back pain are global problems that need attention, intensified research and education to diminish the personal and socioeconomic costs in an attempt to decrease the global burden of musculoskeletal disease.
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