Abstract
Forty-four patients (approximately 10 per cent) had low back pain with psychogenic overlay among 405 new patients suffering from low back pain who visited our hospital from April to October in 1987. The psychogenic component of the pain was evaluated by the treating orthopedists based on the characteristics of psychogenic pain. The Cornell Medical Index (CMI) test as a diagnostic aid was done on 43 patients of low back pain with psychogenic overlay. As the result of the CMI tests, 24 patients (54.5%) were neurotic or provisionally neurotic and 19 patients were normal or provisionally normal. The diagnosis was valid when the agreement between orthopedic evaluation and CMI datum was obtained. In these cases the CMI data were of practical value for application as a diagnostic aid. In two cases the orthopedic evaluations indicated distinct psychogenic overlay, but their CMI data were normal. One of these two cases was a multiply operated back patient. As the reason for this discrepancy we thought that the CMI indicated normal data becanse they were stabilized emotionally and they were not conscious of the psychogenic effect. In conclusion, we recognized the limitation of CMI as psychological test for a certain kind of cases.
