Low Back Pain in a Nova Scotian Emergency Department: Prevalence and Patient Characteristics in the Older Adult Patient Population

Low back pain is a major cause of disability in older adults, and results in many emergency department visits each year. Characteristics of the older back pain population are largely unknown. We conducted a retrospective study to examine the prevalence and patient characteristics for older (≥ 65 years of age) and younger (16-64 years of age) adults presenting with back pain. Study objectives were to describe the characteristics of older adults with back pain presenting to an emergency department and to identify age-group based differences in management. Older adults were most commonly diagnosed with non-specific low back pain (49%). For older adults with this diagnosis, the length of stay was 2.1 times longer (p < 0.001), and odds of being admitted to the hospital were 5.1 times higher (p < 0.001) than for younger adults. Patterns of management are different for younger and older adults with low back pain; this information can be used to direct future resource planning.