It has been concluded that efforts at every stage can be made towards prevention of long-term disability associated with low back pain, including work loss.

Primary prevention
Elimination or minimisation of risks to health or well-being. It is an attempt to determine factors that cause disabling low back disability and then create programmes to prevent these situations from ever occurring.

Secondary prevention
Alleviation of the symptoms of ill health or injury, minimising residual disability and eliminating, or at least minimising, factors that may cause recurrence. It is an attempt to maximise recovery once the condition has occurred and then prevent its recurrence.

Secondary prevention emphasises the 27 prevention of excess pain behaviour, the sick role, inactivity syndromes, re-injury, recurrences, complications, psychosocial sequelae, long-term disability and work loss.

Tertiary prevention
Rehabilitation of those with disabilities to as full function as possible and modification of the workplace to accommodate any residual disability. It is applied after the patient has become disabled. The goal is to return to function and patient acceptance of residual impairment/s; this may in some instances require work site modi? cation.