Classification Of Low Back Pain Using Shirley Sahrmann’s Movement System Impairments, An Overview Of The Concept

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Original Editors - Nathan Brookes, Jade Gothard, Lewis Payne, Philippa Wallis

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1. INTRODUCTION

The reader is advised that the following text is in no way comprehensive and is written only to provide a broad understanding of Movement Impairment Syndromes concepts and their application to the lumbar spine. For a more comprehensive understanding, the reader is directed to the text Diagnosis and Treatment on Movement Impairment Syndromes written by Shirley Sahrmann (2001), other key texts are listed at the end of this text.
Pain arising from the musculoskeletal system is the most common reason for individuals receiving Physiotherapy, 60% are treated for musculoskeletal pain, 25% of those are treated for Low Back Pain (LBP)(Jette and Davis, 1991) making LBP the most common site of musculoskeletal pain (Deyo and Phillips, 1996). LBP affects at least 80% of us at some point in our lives (Freburger et al, 2009). It is the 5th most common reason people visit a Physician in the U.S. Following an episode of LBP, data suggests that full recovery is often not made after a 12 month period of recovery (Croft et al, 1998). Recurrent LBP is also common (Van Dillen et al, 2005).
A lack of evidence for a management strategy to consistently treat the symptoms and disability of LBP (Van Dillen et al, 2005) has led to the argument that one such classification system is required. To date no system has been found to be applicable to all patients with LBP (Riddle, 1998).
Diagnosis and treatment of Movement System Impairments (MSI) is the work of Dr. Shirley A. Sahrmann. Dr. Sahrmann has achieved Bachelor of Science in Physical Therapy, a Masters degree in Cell biology and Physiology, and a Ph. D. in Neurology at Washington University in St Louis. Dr. Sahrmann is a Catherine Worthingham Fellow of the American Physical Therapy Association and is a recipient of the Associations Marion Williams Research Award, the Lucy Blair Service Award, the Kendall Practice Award, the John H.P. Maley Lecture and Mary McMillan Lecture awards. Dr. Sahrmann has been a keynote speaker at the World Confederation of Physical Therapy.

References

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