The link between chronic back pain and depression
When a patient walks into an orthopedic spine clinic, most providers are focused on one thing: the back. But after over a decade of caring for patients with chronic pain, I noticed something deeper lurking behind the disc herniation and spinal stenosis: depression. And it was not being addressed.
That is why I launched a quality-improvement (QI) project focused on integrating depression screening into the routine evaluation of orthopedic spine patients. …
