Back Pain Is All In The Mind Says Belgian Psychologist
Main Category: Back PainAlso Included In: Psychology / Psychiatry
Article Date: 26 Mar 2004 - 0:00 PDT
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90% of back pain is, in fact, a psychological condition caused by depression or stress. This is according to a psychologist from Ghent University, Belgium. He said that in those 90% of cases, it has nothing to do with any real physical problems.
Researchers at Manchester Metropolitan University (UK) say that their research findings agree with Liesbeth Gougert's (from Belgium).
He said that over the last six months 40% of Belgians had complained of backache. However, only 10% of those cases were actually caused by real symptoms, he said.
According the to Manchester Metropolitan University's study, factors such as depression, fear and low self-esteem (low confidence) were more important in prolonging a patient's condition and recovery than physical capacity alone.
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MLA
15 Feb. 2012. <http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/6822.php>
APA
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/6822.php.
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Visitor Opinions In Chronological Order (3)
Pain is not in my head, it's in my back!
posted by christine on 30 Mar 2004 at 9:17 amI have suffered chronic LBP for the past 16 years. Until recently, no medical provider could pinpoint why. Although I have recently been found to have a medical condition, I spent the first fourteen years with this pain dealing with persons who had your opinion. (That it was all in my head.) I can tell you it was most certainly NOT in my head, it was in my back! For fourteen years I was seen as a fraud, or a hypochondriac. People with problems like mine end up having many more difficulties and much less relief because of opinions like yours.
i have the same issue
posted by Terresa on 18 Sep 2004 at 1:35 amI was recently in a car accident and they are saying the same thing. I am a young female, so therefore it must be my way of looking at it. Please tell me what you were diagnoised as having or how did you finally get answers?
Car accident in Spain,but no treatment in UK
posted by Jillian Harris on 21 Oct 2004 at 12:56 pmIn August 2001, I had a very nasty accident in the Xalo Vallery, some 25 miles inland from Javea.
I was a passenger and sustained head injuries and tramatised nerves plus a neck injury which restricts turning my head, from the neck because of injury to the upper spine.
I was placed in an observation ward after having CAT scans & other procedures at Denia Hospital, Spain.
Upon arrival to the UK, I reported to my local A&E dept; and also my GP who had the report from Denia Hospital, however this was written in spanish, as a result it was never read by the GP or my local hospital.Apart from the shelving of the documentation by my GP & Hospital, I received absolutly no painreleif from my GP.
In fact his very words were, ' this is all part of getting older & is just arthritus, when you are 65 and in severe pain then I can give you something'.
I had 12 months of excruciating pain which came on about a month after the accident and just kept getting worse.
I had to wait some 14 months to get an appointment to attend a pain clinic, which the doctor at this clinic prescribed, Celebrex ( anti-inflamatory drug), also DF 118's ( pain killers).
Once this pain clinic doctor had prescribed these tablets which did alleviate the pain to some extent, having said that the pain was begining to subside a little by this time.
After this my GP then was quite willing to follow suit and prescribe the same tablets.
Why did I have to suffer so much before my GP would help in anyway?
Then we have the matter of psyotherapy which I am now told should have been started as soon as possible to alliviate restriction in neck movement.
At last, I now have an appointment for psyotherapy in early November this year (2004) some 3 years later.
There is much more negligence which accompanies this case, mainly by my GP & local A&E dept;
After receiving excellent care in Spain, where in the observation ward the staff outnumbered the patients & I can remember seeing one of two doctors sitting by my bed watching me every time I opened my eyes, this went on for two days & nights, I just cannot except the excuses which we are inundated with in the UK.
It seems that the doctors in my area look more to the voices of politicians than they do their own patients & their own patients wellbeing.
Where are we going with the medical profession today.
Jillian Harris.
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