Back pain? You to a psychiatrist

Suffer from permanent and debilitating back pain? They may be all-only a consequence of your imagination, as scientists have found. Experts recommend that in this "Chronicle" did not attend rheumatologists, and go straight to a psychiatrist.

The research assistance of specially trained psychiatrists twice improved the condition of patients, previously treated with standard therapy. Scientists believe that the so-called cognitive behavioral therapy   ( CBT ) Works, because if you can change people's thoughts, you can change their feelings. Including pain.

Through CBT today already treated a whole range of issues from various phobias and panic attacks to stress at work. Practitioners cognitive behavioral therapy   specialists help people to change their prevailing negative thinking and find ways to overcome it.

"An effective medical treatment of chronic back pain is now almost no - says Professor Sarah Lamb, of the University of Warwick. - However, clinical trials have shown that CBT is very effective at chronic backache ".

From this pain suffers an average of one in three adults Britain, and about 2, 5 million people a year seek help from general practitioners. For many people, the pain goes away after a few days or weeks. But for some pain may last for a very long time, disrupting their normal existence. The researchers found that CBT in many cases, is able to help such people. Moreover, CBT sessions can even be carried out via the Internet, although the test, patients met with therapists face to face.

In the study, 468 patients received six sessions of group CBT And another 233 went only traditional treatment. In the first group the level of pain and disability in six months fell an average of two times.

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