Back

Bringing Home the Back Pain

People joke that many dogs and dog owners look alike. Researchers at the Tulane School of Public Health in New Orleans report a similar phenomenon among back pain sufferers. They found that people living with someone who has disabling back pain often start to have the same kind of pain. Other members of the household are also more likely to have a back injury that keeps them from getting back to work.

Some researchers call this the "pain-prone family." In this case, it's not inherited. It's behavior that's modeled and imitated. The spouse of an injured worker develops a pain pattern very much like the injured or disabled worker. This can also happen to partners or other family members living with the disabled worker.

In this study the patients had a work-related spine injury (WRSI). None of the injured subjects could work anymore. The nonworking WRSI patients were compared to a second group. The second group had a WRSI, but they were still working. Data was collected about each group of patients from their medical charts. Each one was also contacted by phone whenever possible.

The authors report that several factors predict disability after a work-related injury. Predictors include gender (more women have back pain than men), area of spine involved, and severity of injury. But none of these predictors was as strong as having a family member with a similar disability.

The authors of this study think that knowing about this predictor may help find the workers who are at risk for chronic back pain after a WRSI. Treatment and management of such workers may change based on knowing how social issues affect their recovery.

References: Randall D. Lea, MD, et al. Familial Disability Patterns in Individuals with Chronic Work-Related Spine Injury/Illness. In Spine. October 1, 2003. Vol. 28. No. 19. Pp. 2292-2297.

Back