04/02/2026
Excellent inservice training on this very important topic today Kendal Physio Centre knowledge bombs going off everywhere!
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🤓RESEARCH WEDNESDAY🤓
We use red flag questions every day in low back pain screening…
but what does the evidence actually say about how useful they are?
In this large prospective study of nearly 10,000 patients, positive red flags (like trauma or age > 50 yrs) did associate with serious pathology, but other classic red flags (like night pain) were often false positives and the absence of red flags didn’t rule out serious disease at all. 
In other words:
✔ Some red flags do matter
❌ Many do not decrease risk when absent
✔ Negative answers don’t mean it’s safe to skip reasoning
❌ Blind checklists can mislead more than they guide
This is exactly why context and clinical reasoning - not memorised lists - should drive our assessment of low back pain.
This February on The Better Clinician Project, & are breaking down:
📌 which red flags actually matter
📌 how to interpret them in real patients
📌 and how to integrate evidence with reasoning
👉 Subscribe now - link in stories
