Abstract
Using data published elsewhere I demonstrate in this paper that the frequency distribution of the duration of work incapacity from low back pain follows a power law. Power laws are not common in medicine and the question arises why we can find one here. The peculiarity of the data considered here is that they embrace not only the passive reaction but also the whole spectrum of possible active responses of a living being to a disturbance. For the duration of sick leave due to low back pain is not only influenced by the defect a person is affected by, but even more dependent on how he or she copes with it. Coping comprises a broad range of possibilities from denial of the disability to its aggravation, from therapy to malingering. In contrast to the scientific ideal none of these faculties has been excluded in the data used here. They concern the whole living being. Power laws are typical for systems in the state of self-organized criticality. The system involved in the case of low back pain is the whole living human being with all its possibilities to react and to respond. Thus, my findings support empirically the hypothesis that living beings are in the state of self-organized criticality.
Published Version
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