Connected Care Blog | Dr Irwin Lim | Arthritis Care

Watch Your Back

Written by Dr Irwin Lim | 15-Oct-2015 21:40:50

We suspect that up to 80% of Australians experience back pain at some point in their lives. A number of these become chronic and it’s a huge drain on our health resources.

While this is not hard science, Men’s Health magazine recently surveyed about 400 Australian men between 20-40 years of age about their back pain.

The results are interesting:

It is estimated that about 5% of patients with chronic back pain have inflammatory back pain and in turn, some of those with inflammatory back pain will end up developing Ankylosing Spondylitis, a serious disorder I’ve written a lot about.

Here’s Dr Andrew Rochford, Channel Seven News National Health Editor talking about the Men’s Health Survey and Watch Your Back, an Ankylosing Spondylitis awareness campaign.

 

Why bother targeting this small group?

Well, the answer is that much can be done for this particular group.

Find out more at Empowered.