Evidence-Based Management of Low Back Pain

Covering all commonly used interventions for acute and chronic low back pain conditions, Evidence-Based Management of Low Back Pain consolidates current scientific studies and research evidence into a single, practical resource. Its multidisciplinary approach covers a wide scope of treatments from manual therapies to medical interventions to surgery, organizing interventions from least to most invasive. Editors Simon Dagenais and Scott Haldeman, along with expert contributors from a variety of clinical and academic institutions throughout the world, focus on the best available scientific evidence, summarizing the results from the strongest to the weakest types of studies. No other book makes it so easy to compare the different interventions and treatment approaches, giving you the tools to make better, more informed clinical decisions.

• A multidisciplinary approach covers treatments from manual therapies to medical interventions to surgery, and many others in between.
• An interdisciplinary approach enables health care providers to work together.
• A logical, easy-to-follow organization covers information by intervention type, from least invasive to most invasive. 
• Integration of interventions provides information in a clinically useful way, so it's easier to consider more than one type of treatment or intervention for low back pain, and easier to see which methods should be tried first.
• 155 illustrations include x-rays, photos, and drawings.
• Tables and boxes summarize key information.
• Evidence-based content allows you to make clinical decisions based on the ranking the best available scientific studies from strongest to weakest.
• Patient history and examination chapters help in assessing the patient's condition and in ruling out serious pathology before making decisions about specific interventions.
• Experienced editors and contributors are proven authors, researchers, and teachers, and practitioners, well known in the areas of orthopedics, pain management, chiropractic, physical therapy, and behavioral medicine as well as complementary and alternative medicine; the book's contributors include some of the leading clinical and research experts in the field of low back pain.
• Coverage based on The Spine Journal special issue on low back pain ensures that topics are relevant and up to date.
• A systematic review of interventions for low back pain includes these categories: patient education, exercise and rehabilitation, medications, manual therapy, physical modalities, complementary and alternative medicine, behavioral modification, injections, minimally invasive procedures, and surgery.
• Surgical interventions include decompression, fusion, disc arthroplasty, and dynamic stabilization.
• Additional coverage includes patient education and multidisciplinary rehabilitation.

This comprehensive text is a practical clinical resource for all spine care practitioners. With contributions from more than 50 international spine experts in a number of professions, Dagenais and Haldeman have created a thorough reference of the current scientific evidence in the management of low back pain.

Overall, this text is extremely enjoyable to read, reviewing the current evidence for the broad spectrum of interventions to treat low back pain in a clear and concise manner.  It provides a strong foundation for students and health professionals in a multitude of disciplines to further their understanding of the management of low back pain and stimulate discussion between health-care practitioners. Through these discussions, this valuable resource could be used to increase interprofessional collaboration and patient-centered care.  This is an exceptional reference text - it should be considered the next ''must read'' for all providers of spine care!

Brynne E. Stainsby, BA, DC, Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College, The Spine Journal

The book does a superb job of examining the literature for each topic, and chapters are prepared by acknowledged experts in each discipline.

This is a wonderful book. It provides, in one place, thorough and up-to-date information on the most common forms of management for low back pain. It does so by relying on recent, rigorous literature from leading lights for each topic. I cannot think of any book in this area which comes close to this one in terms of accomplishing its goals and of meeting readers' educational needs. It will find use in many different areas of healthcare and in educational institutions. It will have a wide audience.

Dana J. Lawrence, DC, MMedEd, MA, Palmer College of Chiropractic, Doody Review Service

The authors went to great lengths to take a close-up look at a wide array of treatment options and they realized a nearly impossible task of streamlining the bulk of currently available evidence on chronic low back pain. For each treatment, five different sections were created to allow clinicians, patients, third-party payers and other stakeholders to make informed decisions; namely: description, theory, efficacy, safety and costs. This intelligent design was implemented identically for each treatment.

Backspace, Autumn 2011