What the cost of back-pain care can tell us
A new review includes yoga among potentially cost-saving approaches, with evidence drawn entirely from high-income countries.
A systematic review published in PLOS Medicine on 27 October brings the cost of care into the discussion of low back pain. Across 20 economic studies involving 14,884 participants, several recommended non-drug, non-surgical approaches offered potential value compared with usual care. Yoga was among the approaches that could improve outcomes while reducing costs from at least one assessed perspective.
Value depends on the setting
The review distinguishes costs borne by healthcare services, payers and society. Those perspectives are not interchangeable: a programme can affect treatment spending, time away from work and the resources needed to attend in different ways.
All included evidence came from high-income countries, and the studies varied considerably in their methods and settings. The authors caution against assuming the findings transfer directly to places with different resources. For teachers, the useful question is how a particular programme is delivered and accessed. This review does not establish that every yoga class saves money or provides treatment for back pain.
Sources
YOGA+