Before providing remedy, it is very important to understand the symptoms and then be able to diagnose the lower back pain causes. After getting a thorough background of the patient, the physician could already ascertain plausible causes of lower back pain through a physical spinal assessment.
One good example of a test performed during a medical examination is the Straight Leg Raising Test. With the patient lying in the supine position (on his back), the doctor holds the ankle while attempting to keep the knee extended, and pulls the leg to find out the range of flexion in the hip joint. If contralateral radiation or if the relaxed leg feels soreness while the other is raised then there is nerve root compression.
Some other tests that may help establish if a patient has a pinched nerve is with the dorsiflexion of the foot and pressing upon the popliteal fossa where the tibial nerve is found while stretching a flexed knee. These tests can also help verify if there is a presence of lumbar herniation. Unless any Lower Back Pain Symptoms are existing, imaging procedures like X-rays and CT scans will not be used with acute lower back pain. A physician can quickly figure out lower back pain causes with the application of imaging techniques which is suggested for patients with chronic lower back pain.
Never waste time and money on unnecessary procedures by identifying middle back pain causes and symptoms.
For lower back pain patients, the next few diagnostic checks are some of the most commonly utilized in the medical community today…
• Plain X-ray: Best employed in patients whose lower back pain has not improved or has worsened after 30 days. X-rays are advised in patients who have endured substantial injury, patients 50 years old and above who have experienced moderate shock, those with osteoporosis, and individuals with a record of long term steroid use. Bone deformities like scoliosis, bone fractures and alterations caused by aging can also be detected with an X-ray.
• Myelogram: Somewhat comparable to an X-ray, a myelogram entails injecting a radio-opaque dye into the spinal canal of the patient. If surgical procedure is planned on the patient, this test is used with a CT scan.
• CT scan: This is a good test for patients with lower back pain symptoms that are showing spinal or bone infection, fracture, tumor, or cauda equina but for acute cases, this test is not advised.
• MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging): Suggested for the same illnesses as in CT scans.
There have been varying results when it pertains to the use of this test to locate disc herniations. Almost 20% of ruptured discs revealed during surgery have not been detected by the MRI done in one study. Bulging discs are revealed in MRI test patients who don’t have low back pain in 40% of cases.
• Bone density: Used to detect osteoporosis and weakness in the backbone. Lower back pain is not a direct manifestation of osteoporosis though it may happen when the bone breaks brought on by this problem.
• Electromyelogram (EMG): A nerve test undertaken by putting tiny, fine needles into the muscles so as to monitor electrical activity. The level of nerve root damage can be conveniently established and a doctor can plainly distinguish between muscle disease and nerve root disease in chronic lower back pain cases.
These imaging strategies would assist the doctor in finding out thelower back pain causes. .

September 4th, 2010
rastid
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