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Mechanical Low Back Pain

Treatable and Inappropriate Patients

Treatable Patients

• Patients with acute, sub-acute or chronic LBP.
• The symptoms may occur suddenly or gradually.
• The symptoms may occur in the buttock or down the leg.
• There may be accompanying postural deformity or limitation of motion.
• Patients may have intermittent sciatica without neurological deficit.

Inappropriate Patients

• Patients with constant sciatica and neurological deficit.
• Patients who are so acute that they cannot stand and walk. These patients and those above with sciatica may be evaluated and treated at a later date when symptoms lessen.
• Exclude patients where no movement or position lessens or centralizes their symptoms; this includes patients with chemical pain following trauma or pain associated with infection or inflammation.
• Patients with developmental or acquired bony anomalies.
• Patients presenting with signs or symptoms or a history that suggests the possibility of an underlying serious pathology including but not limited to:
  • saddle anesthesia
  • bowel or bladder dysfunction
  • bilateral, distal symptoms
  • signs or symptoms of abdominal pathology
  • no reason for onset, gradually becoming worse over weeks or months, pain at rest, little loss of function, looks and feels unwell.