Clinical Practice Guidelines for Low Back Pain

Course Description

Clinicians often times lack the appropriate level of knowledge in using the APTA’s Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPG) and clinical reasoning to diagnose and manage low back pain.  After completing this webinar the participant will be able to incorporate clinical practice guidelines when designing a plan of care for managing low back pain.

Participants will be introduced to the current evidence-based approach to management of low back pain using Clinical Practice Guidelines from the Orthopaedic Physical Therapy Section of the American Physical Therapy Association with clinical reasoning. As payers and medical practitioners increasingly depend on evidence-based guidelines, clinicians must utilize published recommendations when selecting examination tools and designing therapeutic programs to direct functional outcomes and to optimize documentation for reimbursement.

CPGs are intended to complement the clinical reasoning process of clinicians, not to provide a mandated protocol for making decisions about patient management.  Select the proper impairment categories for your patients with low back pain for a more accurate match to their medical diagnosis, and choose recommended interventions to promote functional outcomes. Recognize what intervention types to utilize for specific impairment categories based on current evidence to successfully address low back pain and its related limitations.

Course Objectives

At the end of this course, the participant will be able to:

1. Discuss the current clinical practice guidelines (CPG) for patients with low back pain (LBP) as developed by the orthopedic section of the American Physical Therapy Association
2. Conduct an examination for patients with low back pain and interpret the results to diagnose anatomical and functional impairments and classify people into the associated impairment-based category.
3. Select intervention strategies to address activity restriction limitations and functional mobility impairments based on the CPG classification of impairments for LBP.
4. Better understand the terminology and recommendations used in the CPG for low back pain.

• Prerequisites

  None

• Educational Level

  Intermediate

• Other

  Satisfactory completion of this course will require the participant to respond to various polling questions asked throughout the webinar.