[Spinal diseases: vertebral complaints in relation to site and age].

Disorders of the vertebral column are one of the most common causes of pain in the human being. The nosological classification of various disorders is carried out according to many different criteria, e.g. topical pain descriptions such as cervical syndrome and lumbago in particular, but more often also according to purely speculative factors such as intervertebral disc lesions, muscular rheumatism etc. The analysis of each single structural disturbance which could come into question is a primary function of the anamnesis, and in particular of the clinical examination, which must seek, respectively recognize signs not only of functional disturbances but also of functional devastations, in order to then objectify the structural devastation in particular using a number of different methods. The therapeutic consequences are drawn from the actual diagnosis, which must, above all, distinguish between the acute and the chronic symptoms, in order to then influence those as well as these symptoms in the foreground. Vertebral complaints express themselves in different ways depend on the age of the patient, a fact which must be taken into consideration when forming a diagnosis.