Study: Chronic Back Pain, Depression Related

A study conduced by Spine-health.com showed that depression can be much higher in people suffering from back pain. They conducted a poll in June and the results for that poll show that 61% of people who have chronic back pain also suffer from bouts of depression. This far exceeds the estimate of 20-30% that was the result of previous clinical evidence.

The incidence of depression in the public in general is 5% and is treated with a very wide range of treatments, including but not limited to, starting new lifestyle changes, joining support groups, going for professional counseling, and the prescription of various anti-depressants.

It is most likely that the back pain causes the depression rather than the other way around. The continuous 24 hour a day pain puts a stress on not only the physical body, but also on the persons ability to think and it makes the everyday tasks that most people take for granted, almost impossible to complete. There is nothing more depressing than to not to be able to do the simple tasks that the person had been able to do up until the time of the back injury.

Depression can cause many things, such as a family crisis where the family members find it hard to deal with the sever personality changes in the patient. Untreated, it can lead to suicide and other medical conditions. Depression patients can exhibit sever loss of appetite, which can lead to even more medical problems. It is a condition not to be ignored or treated as something that is just going to go away. It won't.

One surprising fact is that many of the people reporting that they are depressed, were not diagnosed as depressed by a physician. They came to the realization by themselves and in many cases may not mention it to a physician. Or if they do, the physician may not be taking them seriously enough. This leads to the conclusion that physicians are not looking into the possibility that depression is a serious issue with their chronic pain patients and this should serve as a warning to doctors to look beyond the physical pain and look at the whole patient, physically and mentally.