A very common musculoskeletal disorder is back pain. Something that is as simple as wrong posture to as traumatic as an accident can be the varied causes of back pain. At some point in their life 90% of all adults will experience back pain speaking statistically. Back pain is common in the elderly but should be of concern in the young.

Muscle strain, lifting heavy weights, improper stretching, wrong posture, stress etc are the most common cause of back pain. can result in muscle strain or muscle spasm. The sensation of pain is evoked from the strained muscle.

Intervertebral disks are another cause of pain. Intervertebral disks are fluid filled cartilaginous disks that cushion and lubricate the vertebrae. The vertebrae grind against one another resulting in pain as the disks shrink in size when people age.

Sometimes ruptured or herniated disks are also responsible for back pain and require surgery to correct. Trauma or excessive force is generally responsible for ruptured disks.

Infection of the bone or soft tissue, spinal stenosis, sciatica, osteoarthritis etc are the other causes of back pain.

The tissue exerts force against the spinal cord due to Infection of the bone or cartilaginous tissue that causes the tissue to swell and this results in back pain.

Sciatica is basically the irritation or compression of any of the five spinal nerve roots that form the sciatic nerve. In the lower back and pelvic region the pain is felt. Depending on the amount of pressure applied on the nerves the intensity of pain can be measured.

The condition in which the spinal cavity narrows and compresses the spinal cord is called as Spinal stenosis. Mostly, it happens as a consequence of spinal degeneration that occurs with ageing. Sometimes spinal stenosis can occur due to osteoporosis, intervertebral disk herniation or tumor. Compression of the spinal cord due to narrowing of the spinal cavity causes pain.

Osteoarthritis is a degenerative joint disorder that causes the degeneration of the mechanical component of skeletal joints, namely the articular cartilage and bone. Osteoarthritis generally sets in with old age but it can also be congenital or hereditary. The degradation of the joint causes swelling and chronic pain.

This sums up the basic causes of back pain.