Pain drawing is a well known method to describe pain, both to guide diagnostic work in cases with or without root syndromes and to follow results of treatment. A specially designed pain drawing, which describe four pain dimensions : pain quality, pain duration, pain intensity and pain distribution, was administered to 123 patients referred to an department of rehabilitation medicine because of low back pain.
The following results were obtained.
1) The mean age of degenerative spondylosis was higher than those of other low back pain.
2) The quality of low back pain was represented to cramping, numbness and aching in order.
3) Low back pain was frequently radiating to the buttock, posterior thigh and leg, in which the herniated nucleus pulposus(HNP)(11 cases) was most frequently hurt with a sensation of numbness, but also the back muscle pain(3 cases) had same complaints.
These results indicate that from the features of the pain drawing alone, it was possible to predict the present of HNP, but it might not be a sufficiently valid instrument for assessing low back pain patients to allow it to be used for individual diagnosis without other examinations.
