Back pain can really affect the way you live your daily life. Whether it is making it difficult to sit and stand or stopping you leaving the house, it is important that your doctor can determine exactly how much your pain is stopping you going about your usual daily activities.

To help us measure the impact of your back pain, your doctor can use measuring instruments called Disability Scales. These are similar to the scales used to measure lower back pain that we covered in a recent blog and they allow clinicians to build a clearer picture of how your back pain is affecting you.

The Oswestry Disability Index and The Roland Morris Disability Scale are the most popular scales and we use the Roland Morris Disability Scale here at Broadgate Spine & Joint Clinic.

The Roland Morris Disability Scale

This scale involves asking the patient with back pain a series of questions about the impact their suffering is having on their ability to carry out daily activities. There are 24 questions in total and they include the following:

• I walk more slowly than usual because of the pain in my back.
• I stay at home most of the time because of the pain in my back.
• I am not doing any of the jobs that I usually do around the house because of the pain in my back.
• I lie down to rest more often because of the pain in my back.

Once the patient has answered the questions, the doctor can work out a disability percentage. This allows him to determine how severe the back pain disability is and how it is having an impact on the patient’s life. This in turn allows your doctor to devise a suitable treatment plan that is appropriate for each patient’s individual situation and needs.

Here at Broadgate Spine & Joint Clinic, we are always striving to develop new appropriate instruments similar to the Roland Morris Disability Scale so we can use them to measure patients’ pain and the effects of their treatment with increasing accuracy and reliability.

To find out more about how we treat lower back pain, call 020 7638 4330 and you can find out more about the author of this blog, Alan Jordan, here http://www.broadgatespinecentre.co.uk/chiropractor-london/.