Occupational back pain: then and now.

Before the Society for Back Pain Research was founded, studies in Scandinavia [1], Manchester [2] and Edinburgh [3] had reported that the prevalence of back pain in male workers was approximately 30%. More detailed studies indicated that the ratio of low back pain (LBP) to scapulohumeral pain (SlIP) was of the order of 3:1. It was also well established that the prevalence increased with age, was higher among those engaged in heavy tasks than light work, and also among those who had to adopt awkward postures for long periods. At that time the distribution of back pain syndromes throughout almost every section of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) made consistency difficult and encouraged specialists from a wide range of clinical disciplines to classify back disorders according to their own nomenclatures and thus justify their numerous therapies some of which were quite bizarre. Finally the attitude of the General Medical Council (GMC) to liaison between Registered Medical Practitioners and therapists who were not on their register meant that joint studies were difficult. 2. SBPR influences