Health report: Anyone who has "backs" in Germany

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MunichGermany has a "back": Around 40 million days of absence were due to general back pain or herniated discs in 2013. This is the result of a health report by the Techniker Krankenkasse (TK). Because back problems are not only common, they are also protracted: A sick leave due to back pain takes an average of 17.5 days. That is five days longer than the average incapacity for work.

Work that goes on your back

The report shows that people with strenuous activities suffered particularly often from back pain. Employees who work in the construction industry and those in metalworking professions, for example. They had problems with the cross about five times as often as people who earn their money in the media, as scientists or in administration. "The results support the assumption that strong physical or mechanical stress in everyday work contributes to damage to the spine and pain symptoms in the back," the authors of the study write. So it is not surprising that people with a higher level of education have fewer complaints - they have to do much less physically strenuous activities.

On the other hand, lack of exercise is also detrimental to back health - if you work as a driver, for example, you sit too much - that is also bad for your back.

Psyche hits the back

In addition to physical stress, psychological pressure is also reflected in the lower back. This explains why the unemployed have back problems almost as often as construction workers.

Although teenagers are more likely to have back problems than young adults, back pain tends to increase with age. The gender, on the other hand, does not matter - women have it in the back just as often as men.

The place of residence also plays a role

It is not so easy to explain the differences in back problems between the federal states: the front runner is Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where there were 1.81 days absent due to back problems for every resident - followed by an average of 1.74 days absent in Brandenburg and 1.61 days absent in Saarland and in Saxony-Anhalt. Back pain was particularly rare in the southern federal states of Baden-Württemberg, Saxony and Bavaria (1.1 each). (cf)

Source: TK Health Report, Back Risk, June 2014

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