Back pain and heart failure in community-dwelling older adults: Findings from the Health ABC study.
Jie Chen, Yiming Zhang, Eleanor Simonsick and 5 others
PMID 33823422WHAT IT FOUND
Older adults with back pain reported more falls, worse function, depression and fatigue.
Women with heart failure were more likely to report back pain; cognition did not differ.
Key findings
01Among 1186 adults, 657 reported back pain; those with back pain reported more falls, worse health status, more medications and polypharmacy.
02Heart failure was associated with back pain in women, not men; White women had higher odds of back pain.
03Back pain plus heart failure was associated with worse fatigue, depressive symptoms and physical function, while cognitive scores did not differ.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The analysis was cross-sectional, so it cannot show that back pain caused poor function or that heart failure caused back pain. Only 96 adults had heart failure and 65 had heart failure with back pain, so subgroup comparisons were underpowered. Back pain was captured by one yes or no question, with no information on severity, duration, location or impact. Fatigue was captured by one question. Only back pain was studied, not knee, shoulder, leg or multisite pain. The sample was aged 79 to 91, so findings may not apply to younger older adults. 697 participants were excluded for missing depression or function data. Heart failure type, NYHA class and ejection fraction were not included. The paper did not test whether treating back pain improves heart failure, function, depression or falls.
Declared interests
The supplied metadata lists NIH extramural support. No author conflict of interest declaration was included in the provided text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that treating back pain will improve heart failure outcomes. This is a cross-sectional analysis of associations, and the heart failure groups were small.