Anything but ‘common back pain’. In 2022, low back pain or lumbago occupied eighth place in the ranking of the most disabling diseases drawn up in a study published last May in ‘The Lancet’. And in 2050 it will rise to seventh, even surpassing Alzheimer’s which will jump from 22nd place to eighth. The data from the analysis, according to which Italy by the middle of the 21st century will be among the countries with the probability of seeing pathologies and disorders such as back pain grow between 46% and 53%, are recalled by the National Federation of the Order of Physiotherapists (Fnofi) in view of World Physiotherapy Day scheduled for Sunday 8 September, dedicated this year to back pain. For the occasion, Fnofi is launching the communication campaign ‘The movement that does not stop’ today in Rome.
“Back pain – explain the physiotherapists – is one of the most neglected disorders by people, even if it forces 1 in 3 Italians to stay at home every year, in terms of absence from work: undoubtedly a disorder with a social and personal impact. And if the Censis-Fnomceo report of July 2024 reminds us that there are at least 4.5 million Italians who give up on treatment, in addition to these – underlines the Fnofi – we must also consider those who need physiotherapy and rehabilitation interventions, but who give up for multiple reasons”.
“According to Istat – continues the Federation – there are 8.6 million people in Italy who have motor difficulties, of which 3.4 million with serious difficulties, and 5.5 million people who resort to physiotherapy. The majority (about 57%) are women who resort to physiotherapy treatments. Already at the end of 2022, the World Health Organization reported that 40% of the European population and even 47% of the Italian population needed to receive rehabilitation intervention, of which the vast majority was physiotherapy (we are talking about about 27 million of our fellow citizens). The analysis reported in Lancet confirms even more how back pain is already a disabling pathology and provides a perspective on which prevention is urgently needed. Numbers that require action”, warn the physiotherapists, and to “work on the data, even submerged, of people who need targeted intervention”.
Today’s meeting was attended by Fnofi President Piero Ferrante and Vice President Melania Salina; Mariella Mainolfi, Director General of Health Professions at the Ministry of Health, and Saverio Proia, an expert in health policies and the Fnofi Study Center. It was also an opportunity to dedicate a plaque to the Fnofi Council Room after Mauro Gugliucciello, a physiotherapist who passed away, remembered by all his colleagues and by Salina, who presides over the Professional Order of Friuli Venezia Giulia to which Gugliucciello belonged.
“A categorical imperative to work on the prevention of low back pain is to reach citizens – says Ferrante – also through our new social channels such as Instagram and Facebook, explaining how to best address the issue of back pain and chronic conditions, if they exist, combined with the opportunity for physiotherapy intervention. As a Federation we are committed to intervening on a situation, namely back pain, which by its nature generally has a favorable outcome, to improve the accessibility of care for citizens, to ensure that the economic factor is not a barrier to addressing it in the best possible way, thus making the health system more sustainable, also promoting the contribution of value that freelance physiotherapists can give to the National Health Service”. Because “back pain, which affects millions of people every year, is undoubtedly a topic in which the physiotherapist can and must carry out his very important action, both with regards to prevention and to help people who suffer from it to receive the best answers”.
“The demographic and epidemiological panorama has radically changed – observes the Fnofi president – Citizens have changed needs and legitimately demand appropriate responses. And the health system, as a consequence, is experiencing situations of necessary reorganization, not only with respect to the new needs of the population, but also in relation to the moment of deep crisis that our NHS is going through. As always, physiotherapists are here and will be here – assures Ferrante – with their skills, proven by university courses, masters, research doctorates, increasingly top-level careers and commitments that are increasingly constant and consistent with the now unstoppable development of the science of physiotherapy. They are here and will be here – reiterates the president – well aware of the role and degree of professional autonomy recognized not only by the rules and by the proven scientific evidence, but also by the total safety of care and the satisfaction of the citizens themselves”.
According to the WHO, the physiotherapists point out, “Italy is one of the countries with a marked prevalence of low back pain in older age groups, on a par with the United States, Australia, Russia, Iran and almost all of Europe”.
From the United Nations health agency, Fnofi highlights, “important signals are arriving through the recent publication of new guidelines for non-surgical interventions on chronic low back pain, both in adults and in older people”. The WHO “divides the necessary interventions into 5 classes: education, or learning and awareness by the patient; physical therapies (exercises), psychological therapies, therapies with multi-components and the use of drugs. At the same time, the WHO guidelines also recommend actions not to be done or to be done with caution in the context of routine care interventions: traction, ultrasound, transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS); the use of opioid-based analgesic drugs, antidepressants, anticonvulsants; pharmacological weight loss”.
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