Bad Backs - Back pain management, therapy and products

<body> Back pain management, therapy and products. Your leading guide to pain relief products, back pain resources and therapies. International Delivery. From the traditional to the alternative, and high tech to herbal, if it makes backs better, it's here. BAD BACKS Your leading guide to pain relief products, back pain resources and therapies. International Delivery. From the traditional to the alternative, and high tech to herbal, if it makes backs better, it's here.<br> Bad Backs - Back pain management, therapy and products<br> badbacks.com.au, Bad Back, Back pain, back problem, backache, back care products, lower back pain, sore back, back help, traction machine, inversion table, shoulder brace, posture support, back advice, back therapy, back pain products, spinal injury, back injury, back problems, stiff back, aching back, back pain cure, back pain books, back care books, back exercises, spinal care, spinal care books, spinal care treatments, spinal maintenance, spinal pain, back discomfort, osteopathy, back injury, exercise for back pain, lower back pain exercise, causes symptoms of lower back pain, causes for low back pain, back injury prevention, back support products, lumbar supports, slipped disc, slipped disc treatments, reduce back pain, eliminate back pain, alleviate back pain, abolish back pain, control back pain, back pain management, reduce my back pain, lumbar spine injury, lumbar spine pain, my back hurts, stiff back, back stiffness, back spasm, chronic back problem, cervical spine injury, cervical spine treatment, cervical spine problem, acute back pain treatment, back sprains, back strains, degenerative disc disease, herniated disc, tight back, back self care, back supports, back braces, back self care products, back pain in children, back pain relief, pillows, lumbar supports, neck pain, pain management, sciatica, arthritis, fibromyalgia, scoliosis, pregnancy supports, pregnancy braces, carpal tunnel syndrome, massagers, pain relief products, tens machines, natural remedies, therapeutic massage, chiropractic supports, back mobility, back stretching<br> Arthritis pain should no longer be considered an inevitable part of growing older, the Federal Minister for Ageing, Julie Bishop, said today, at the start of National Arthritis Week (11-17 April). Ms Bishop, who has portfolio responsibility for arthritis and musculoskeletal conditions, urged all Australians with arthritis to see their doctors and therapists to find out about the latest medical treatments and self-management strategies. 'Arthritis is not a disease of ageing,' Ms Bishop said. 'The pain associated with arthritis should no longer be accepted as unavoidable for older people. 'National Arthritis Week will help put Australians in all parts of the nation obtain information and services to assist them to prevent and reduce the effects of arthritis, including through better diet and regular physical exercise. 'I urge people to take a further step if arthritis is suspected. Doctors and therapists can help find medical and self-management solutions, and the consultation could be covered by Medicare.' 'As well, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme makes the cost of important arthritis medicines more affordable for all people, whether they are in the general community or are concession card holders.' Over half of women and a third of men in Australia have some form of arthritis by age 65. Arthritis can lead to disability due to restricted mobility from severe joint pain. Nearly half a million Australians have a disability due to arthritis and the resulting chronic pain. As arthritis is a chronic disease affecting a large proportion of the Australian population, Australia's health ministers have established Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Conditions as a National Health Priority. The Australian Government is investing $11.5 million over four years under the Better Arthritis Care initiative to improve care and management of arthritis and musculoskeletal conditions. This will fund local projects to improve the care of people with arthritis, raise awareness on how to cope better with the condition and assist young people with arthritis. In the past triennium (2000–03) the Australian Government, through the National Health and Medical Research Council, has provided more than $50 million for research in the arthritis and musculoskeletal National Health Priority area. <br> Latest US Research Studies of Alternative Therapies (Posted 11/3/2005) Under the umbrella of manipulative and body-based practices is a group of Complementary & Alternative Medicine (CAM) interventions and therapies. These include Chiropractic and Osteopathic Manipulation, Massage Therapy, Tui Na, Reflexology, Rolfing, Bowen Technique, Trager Bodywork, Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais Method, and a host of others. Surveys of the U.S. population suggest that between 3 percent and 16 percent of adults receive chiropractic manipulation in a given year, while between 2 percent and 14 percent receive some form of massage therapy. In 1997, U.S. adults made an estimated 192 million visits to chiropractors and 114 million visits to massage therapists. Visits to chiropractors and massage therapists combined represented 50 percent of all visits to CAM practitioners. Data on the remaining manipulative and body-based practices are sparser, but it can be estimated that they are collectively used by less than 7 percent of the adult population. Manipulative and body-based practices focus primarily on the structures and systems of the body, including the bones and joints, the soft tissues, and the circulatory and lymphatic systems. Some practices were derived from traditional systems of medicine, such as those from China, India, or Egypt, while others were developed within the last 150 years (e.g., chiropractic and osteopathic manipulation). Although many providers have formal training in the anatomy and physiology of humans, there is considerable variation in the training and the approaches of these providers both across and within modalities. For example, osteopathic and chiropractic practitioners, who use primarily manipulations that involve rapid movements, may have a very different treatment approach than massage therapists, whose techniques involve slower applications of force, or than craniosacral therapists. Despite the fact that they are not like each other, manipulative and body-based practices do share some common characteristics, such as the principles that the human body is self-regulating and has the ability to heal itself and that the parts of the human body are interdependent. Practitioners in all these therapies also tend to tailor their treatments to the specific needs of each patient. Range of Studies The majority of research on manipulative and body-based practices has been clinical in nature, encompassing case reports, mechanistic studies, biomechanical studies, and clinical trials. A cursory search in PubMed for research published in the last 10 years identified 537 clinical trials, of which 422 were randomized and controlled. Similarly, 526 trials were identified in the Cochrane database of clinical trials. PubMed also contains 314 case reports or series, 122 biomechanical studies, 26 health services studies, and 248 listings for all other types of clinical research published in the last 10 years. On the other hand, for this same time period, there have been only 33 published articles of research involving in vitro assays or employing animal models. Primary Challenges Different challenges face investigators studying mechanisms of action than those studying efficacy and safety. The primary challenges that have impeded research on the underlying biology of manual therapies include the following: · Lack of appropriate animal models · Lack of cross-disciplinary collaborations · Lack of research tradition and infrastructure at schools that teach manual therapies · Inadequate use of state-of-the-art scientific technologies. Clinical trials of CAM manual therapies face the same general challenges as trials of procedure-based interventions such as surgery, psychotherapy, or more conventional physical manipulative techniques (e.g., physical therapy). These include: · Identifying an appropriate, reproducible intervention, including dose and frequency. This may be more difficult than in standard drug trials, given the variability in practice patterns and training of practitioners. · Identifying an appropriate control group(s). In this regard, the development of valid sham manipulation techniques has proven difficult. · Randomizing subjects to treatment groups in an unbiased manner. Randomization may prove more difficult than in a drug trial, because manual therapies are already available to the public; thus, it is more likely that participants will have a pre-existing preference for a given therapy. · Maintaining investigator and subject compliance to the protocol. Group contamination (which occurs when patients in a clinical study seek additional treatments outside the study, usually without telling the investigators; this will affect the accuracy of the study results) may be more problematic than in standard drug trials, because subjects have easy access to manual therapy providers. · Reducing bias by blinding subjects and investigators to group assignment. Blinding of subjects and investigators may prove difficult or impossible for certain types of manual therapies. However, the person collecting the outcome data should always be blinded. · Identifying and employing appropriate validated, standardized outcome measures. · Employing appropriate analyses, including the intent-to-treat paradigm. Summary of the Major Threads of Evidence Preclinical Studies The most abundant data regarding the possible mechanisms underlying chiropractic manipulation have been derived from studies in animals, especially studies on the ways in which manipulation may affect the nervous system. For example, it has been shown, by means of standard neurophysiological techniques, that spinal manipulation evokes changes in the activity of proprioceptive primary afferent neurons in paraspinal tissues. Sensory input from these tissues has the capacity to reflexively alter the neural outflow to the autonomic nervous system. Studies are under way to determine whether input from the paraspinal tissue also modulates pain processing in the spinal cord. Animal models have also been used to study the mechanisms of massage-like stimulation. It has been found that antinociceptive and cardiovascular effects of massage may be mediated by endogenous opioids and oxytocin at the level of the midbrain. However, it is not clear that the massage-like stimulation is equivalent to massage therapy. Although animal models of chiropractic manipulation and massage have been established, no such models exist for other body-based practices. Such models could be critical if researchers are to evaluate the underlying anatomical and physiological changes accompanying these therapies. Clinical Studies: Mechanisms Biomechanical studies have characterized the force applied by a practitioner during chiropractic manipulation, as well as the force transferred to the vertebral column, both in cadavers and in normal volunteers. In most cases, however, a single practitioner provided the manipulation, limiting generalizability. Additional work is required to examine interpractitioner variability, patient characteristics, and their relation to clinical outcomes. Studies using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have suggested that spinal manipulation has a direct effect on the structure of spinal joints; it remains to be seen if this structural change relates to clinical efficacy. Clinical studies of selected physiological parameters suggest that massage therapy can alter various neurochemical, hormonal, and immune markers, such as substance P in patients who have chronic pain, serotonin levels in women who have breast cancer, cortisol levels in patients who have rheumatoid arthritis, and natural killer (NK) cell numbers and CD4+ T-cell counts in patients who are HIV-positive. However, most of these studies have come from one research group, so replication at independent sites is necessary. It is also important to determine the mechanisms by which these changes are elicited. Despite these many interesting experimental observations, the underlying mechanisms of manipulative and body-based practices are poorly understood. Little is known from a quantitative perspective. Important gaps in the field, as revealed by a review of the relevant scientific literature, include the following: · Lack of biomechanical characterization from both practitioner and participant perspectives · Little use of state-of-the-art imaging techniques · Few data on the physiological, anatomical, and biomechanical changes that occur with treatment · Inadequate data on the effects of these therapies at the biochemical and cellular levels · Only preliminary data on the physiological mediators involved with the clinical outcomes Clinical Studies: Trials Forty-three clinical trials have been conducted on the use of spinal manipulation for low-back pain, and there are numerous systematic reviews and meta-analyses of the efficacy of spinal manipulation for both acute and chronic low-back pain. These trials employed a variety of manipulative techniques. Overall, manipulation studies of varying quality show minimal to moderate evidence of short-term relief of back pain. Information on cost-effectiveness, dosing, and long-term benefit is scant. Although clinical trials have found no evidence that spinal manipulation is an effective treatment for asthma, hypertension, or dysmenorrhea, spinal manipulation may be as effective as some medications for both migraine and tension headaches and may offer short-term benefits to those suffering from neck pain. Studies have not compared the relative effectiveness of different manipulative techniques. Although there have been numerous published reports of clinical trials evaluating the effects of various types of massage for a variety of medical conditions (most with positive results), these trials were almost all small, poorly designed, inadequately controlled, or lacking adequate statistical analyses. There have been very few well-designed controlled clinical trials evaluating the effectiveness of massage for any condition, and only three randomized controlled trials have specifically evaluated massage for the condition most frequently treated with massage--back pain. All three trials found massage to be effective, but two of these trials were very small. More evidence is needed. Risks There are some risks associated with manipulation of the spine, but most reported side effects have been mild and of short duration. Although rare, incidents of stroke and vertebral artery dissection have been reported following manipulation of the cervical spine. Despite the fact that some forms of massage involve substantial force, massage is generally considered to have few adverse effects. Contraindications for massage include deep vein thrombosis, burns, skin infections, eczema, open wounds, bone fractures, and advanced osteoporosis. Individual provider experience, traditional use, or arbitrary payer capitation decisions--rather than the results of controlled clinical trials--determine many patient care decisions involving spinal manipulation. More than 75 percent of private payers and 50 percent of managed care organizations provide at least some reimbursement for chiropractic care. Congress has mandated that the Patient Satisfaction Although there are no studies of patient satisfaction with manipulation in general, numerous investigators have looked at patient satisfaction with chiropractic care. Patients report very high levels of satisfaction with chiropractic care. Satisfaction with massage treatment has also been found to be very high. Source: NCCAM (National Center for Complementary & Alternative Medicine)<br> * GIFT CERTIFICATES * * WHATS NEW ! * Braces, Belts & Supports Lumbar Supports & Pillows Books & Manuals Electro Therapy Ergonomic Chairs & Sitting Exercise & Inversion Tables Home Health Care Hot & Cold Therapy Magnetic Therapy Massage Nutritional Supplements Pain Relief Gels & Creams Pregnancy & Parents Sleeping Sports Relationship Between Clinical Depression and Chronic Pain (Posted 8/5/2005) Does clinical depression bring about chronic pain? Or does pain lead to depression? Because these two conditions frequently co-exist (30 to 54 percent of patients with major depressive disorder also suffer persistent physical pain) there has been much speculation about whether one causes the other or whether a common underlying factor provokes both. Results of studies into the precise nature of this relationship, however, have been inconsistent. To gain a clearer understanding of the depression-pain connection, researchers affiliated with the University of Michigan and the University of Cologne, Germany, focused on the underlying mechanisms in the perception of pain, physical and emotional: the brain. Their findings, featured in the May 2005 issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism challenge existing notions on the interplay of emotion and sensation and have important implications for treating depression and pain as separate conditions, even when they occur simultaneously. The study focused on 53 patients, 33 women and 20 men, with fibromyalgia (FM). This symdrome is characterized by intense widespread pain and tenderness to touch and is often accompanied by depression. Using this patient population, the research team set out to evaluate whether higher levels of symptoms of depression are associated with increased sensitivity to pressure-induced pain, as well as to determine which regions of the brain are involved in processing acute pain, chronic pain, and depressive symptoms. 42 healthy controls, 20 women and 22 men, were also included in the study. The mean age was 42 for the FM patients and 38 for the controls. Conducted at Georgetown University's General Clinical Research Center, the study began by assessing the severity of chronic pain and depression in FM patients, through a combination of interviews, questionnaires, and measurement scales. The following day, all subjects, both FM patients and controls, participated in pressure-pain sensitivity experiments, involving the application of pressure to a thumbnail. To get a clear picture of the brain's response to painful stimuli, all subjects underwent magnetic resonance imagining (MRI) scans, before, during, and after the pressure-sensitivity sessions. FM patients were required to discontinue antidepressant medications 4 weeks prior to the study, as well as refrain from using any drugs for pain, including over-the-counter analgesics, starting 3 days before the study. Based on the MRI results, the researchers found that FM patients required significantly less applied pressure than healthy controls to activate neurons associated with acute pain in the brain's sensory domain. This heightened sensitivity applied to FM patients in general, regardless of whether they had been diagnosed with major depressive disorder or reported any depressive symptoms. Furthermore, the researchers found only a weak correlation between the sensory regions of the brain associated with chronic pain and the affective or emotional regions of the brain associated with depression. 'Much has been made of the overlap and similarities between pain and symptoms of depression, but these and other data suggest it is also important to identify pain-processing mechanisms that are independent of mood,' notes the study's leading author, Thorsten Giesecke, M.D. 'The notion that sensory and affective aspects of pain may be independently processed is not just of theoretical interest,' he adds. 'Evaluation of these sensory and affective dimensions in patients with chronic pain is likely to improve diagnosis, choice of treatment, and treatment efficacy.' As this study affirms, prescribing a standard antidepressant medication will not necessarily relieve the suffering of a depressed patient whose pain is not only real but also intensely physical. SOURCE: Article : 'The Relationship Between Depression, Clinical Pain, and Experimental Pain in a Chronic Pain Cohort,' Thorsten Giesecke, Richard H. Gracely, David A. Williams, Michael E. Geisser, Frank W. Petzke, and Daniel J. Clauw, Arthritis & Rheumatism, May 2005; 52:5; pp. 1577-1584. Wiley InterScience - John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Workers More Productive After Exercise (Posted 27/6/2005) Performance, safety, interpersonal relationships improve. Workers' quality of work, mental performance and time management were better on days when they exercised, according to research presented at the 52nd American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) Annual Meeting in Nashville, Tenn. After exercising, study participants returned to work more tolerant of themselves and more forgiving of their colleagues. Their work performance was consistently and significantly higher, as measured by: • Ability to manage time demands • Ability to manage output demands • Mental and interpersonal performance The gains were widespread, with a minimum of 65 percent of workers improving in all three areas on exercise days. The study involved 210 workers in England whose employers offered on-site exercise programs—chiefly aerobics classes, but also yoga and stretching. Participants completed questionnaires reflecting the ease of completing tasks using a seven-point scale. This was done on a day when they exercised during the workday and again on days when they did not. They estimated how typical was each day's workload and provided details about each exercise session. Most of the workers had sedentary jobs; all were involved in voluntary workplace exercise programs and reported feeling confident in their work performance before beginning the study. 'The results are striking,' said lead researcher Jim McKenna, Ph.D. 'We weren't expecting such a strong improvement on productivity linked to exercising. Even more impressive was that these people already thought they were good at their jobs. Participants tracked mood, and as expected, exercising enhanced their mood. However, boosts in productivity were over and above the mood effects; it's the exercise—or attitude related to exercise—that affects productivity.' Focus groups confirmed the surprisingly strong effects of workplace exercise. 'We expected to hear more about the downside, such as afternoon fatigue,' said McKenna. 'But out of 18 themes raised by study participants, 14 were positive. It was almost overwhelming.' Workplace exercise programs, said McKenna, benefit more than just the workers. 'Companies see more productive employees who also work better together. From the public health side, health care costs can be expected to go down for employees who regularly exercise at work. Think of it: fewer sick days, better attendance and more tolerant co-worker relations.' SOURCE: American College of Sports Medicine <br><br><br> <script type="text/javascript"></script><noscript><img src="http://www.searchforsite.com/cgi-bin/sitestats.gif?p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.searchforsite.com%2Fbadbacks.html;r=-;t=7595;" width=1 height=1 alt="sitestats"></noscript> </body>