Souza I.M.B.1, Sakaguchi T.F.1, Comachio J.1, Ferreira M.L.2, Pompeu J.E.1, Marques A.P.1
1University of São Paulo, Departament of Physiotherapy, Speech Therapy and Occupational Therapy, School of Medicine, São Paulo, Brazil, 2Sydney University, The George Institute for Global Health - Australia, Sydney Medical School, Sydney, Australia
Background: Low back pain (LBP) affects over 50% of the general population, being defined as back pain lasting more than 12 weeks. Prevalence of LBP is the second most common reason for absenteeism from work and one of the most common reasons for medical consultation. With aging populations, the absolute number of people with LBP is likely to increase substantially over the coming decades. There are few studies investigating the prevalence of low back pain in aged population. Accordingly, there is a need for an updated, focused and rigorous systematic review to identify and synthesis the prevalence of LBP in elderly.
Purpose: To identify the prevalence of low back pain in the elderly population.
Methods: This systematic review terms used and combined with each of the following according MeSH were: Low back pain, Back pain, Lower back pain, Lumbago, Mechanical low back pain, Postural Low back pain, Epidemiology, Frequency, Incidence, Occurrence, Prevalence, Cross-sectional studies, Aged, Elderly, Sciatic, Intervertebral disc displacement, Spine. The included studies were published in Portuguese, English or Spanish languages, the period from January 1980 to August 2016. Searches were conducted in electronic databases and we funded the studies: CINAHL (5.407), EMBase (660), Lilacs (1.897), MEDLINE (35.850), Scielo (620), Scopus (1.609), SportDiscus (2.115) and Web of Science (18.913). We obtained results 67.071 studies. After reading titles and abstracts we selected 136 studies, but 45 were repeated. To read in full 14 studies and only 8 were included in descriptive analysis. Two independents reviewers selected studies fulfilling the inclusion criteria and extracted relevant data.
Results: We identified 8 studies and evaluated 11.886 elderly subjects, mean aged 74.5 years. The sample had different periods of pain ranging into studies: one month (1), one month to one year (1) three months (2), six months (1) and one year (3). The LBP prevalence ranged among 21 to 61.8 per cent, showing with LBP evaluating 3.570 individuals. However, samples of the study range from 54 to 4.486 subjects, resulting in a higher prevalence of LBP. Two studies have small sample (54 and 131 elderly) and do not represent specific population studied.
Conclusion(s): That systematic review demonstrated LBP is a common symptom in old age population and this have high LBP prevalence, with values between 21 to 61.8 per cent, although, two studies do not have showed representative sample size. More studies on the pain prevalence in the elderly should be encouraged. Further research is needed to identify risk factors and culturally appropriate interventions to prevent and treat LBP.
Implications: The purpose of this systematic review is to assist other physiotherapists researchers about LBP prevalence in the elderly population, because this is an enormous clinical and public health problem. Therefore, considering the increase in population life expectancy, it is necessary to make a systematic review to determine the LBP prevalence into elderly population worldwide and from this study propose preventive actions for this population.
Funding acknowledgements: Capes Foundation for scholarship.
Topic: Rheumatology
Ethics approval: The ethics approval was not required for this study.
All authors, affiliations and abstracts have been published as submitted.
