Physio Academy

This is a pre-recorded webinar. Includes a CPD Certificate at completion.

Course includes:

• Access to the recorded Webinar
• Resources: Manual
• CPD Certificate

Listen to Dr Mark Laslett's webinar discussing specific painful lumbar spine diagnoses including discogenic, facetogenic & SIJ pain. It a diagnosis possible, necessary or desirable? Presentation is followed by Q&A session. 

Here are questions to consider:

• Is a specific diagnosis possible for back pain patients?
• How do we know what the cause of back pain is?
• Is a diagnosis necessary to guide management and treatment?
• When is it necessary?
• Does providing a diagnosis carry risks to the patient?
• Is diagnosis based on imaging e.g MRI?
• How do we use our assessment to arrive at a diagnosis?
• What is the difference between a clinical diagnosis and a reference standard diagnosis?

How do we know the cause of symptoms?

• Clinical Diagnosis: the identification of source, cause and mediators of the pain experience using demographic information, history, physical examination and simple/cheap tests like x-rays or routine blood tests
• Reference Standard Diagnosis: the best-known method of reaching a specific diagnosis. In addition to clinical diagnosis methods, this usually involves expensive and invasive diagnostic tests, like Hi-Tech Imaging or controlled anaesthetic blocks, plus a specialist interpretation of all the information.

What are the main sources of the painful lumbar spine?

There are 5 basic categories

• The anterior column: discogenic or vertebral body pain
• The lumbar facet joints
• The sacroiliac joint
• Central and foraminal stenoses
• The posterior column other than the facet joint (spondylolisthesis & Baastrups disease)