Back pain hurts the bottom line, too

Back pain will affect nearly 80% of Americans at some point in their lifetime, and as anyone who has dealt with back pain can tell you, it can be impossible to work effectively during a bad back pain episode. So it’s no real surprise to learn that this and other pain syndromes cost companies significantly in lost productivity. The Journal of the American Medical Association published a study back in 2003 that estimated that common pain conditions – including back pain, headaches, arthritis, and other musculoskeletal pain – cost companies more that $61...

Is your laptop causing back pain?

Good story on Colorado Daily today about a recent study conducted by researchers at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill that found rampant laptop use might be giving college students chronic pain. Neck pain, back pain, and arm issues like carpal tunnel syndrome are on the increase among college students who are much younger than the typical candidates for this pain. Although long-term desktop computer use has been implicated in some pain conditions, according to these experts, the hours spent in a scrunched position that laptop use dictates can cause bad posture...

Study Shows Massage’s Benefit to I...

Many people tout the benefits of massage as a stress-relieving technique. But little is known about what actually happens in the body chemically during and just after a massage. Researchers at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles looked into just that, and their results, published in the September issue of the Journal of Alternative and Contemporary Medicine, suggest that at least some types of massage can have a powerful effect on the immune system. The 53 healthy study participants each signed up for a 45-minute massage, with 29 randomly assigned to receive a...

Chiropractic’s Insurance Gap

An interesting story today in the Los Angeles Times explores a common frustration for both chiropractic patients and practitioners: insufficient insurance coverage for complementary and alternative medical therapies (CAM), including chiropractic. As the article points out, although consumer interest in CAM has increased steadily and although research has backed up the cost-effectiveness of many types of these therapies, major insurance plans still offer very limited coverage. This is in spite of the fact that alternative medicine is rapidly moving into the mainstream....

Back Pain Relief in a Bowl of Cherries

Back pain is the most common reason people seek out the aid of a chiropractor, and when they do, most are looking for a mechanical solution. While spinal adjustments and other direct forms of treatment can have a powerful affect on back pain, many of our client doctors also will consider the impact of nutrition and maintaining a healthy weight. A holistic approach to pain relief will include an evaluation of the role food plays in a patient’s health. The latest issue of Reader’s Digest lists some common foods that may help ease chronic back pain, and a few that...

Write yourself out of back pain…or...

We have a new article today on a really intriguing study in the journal Chiropractic & Osteopathy that looked at how fear-avoidance–the fear of pain, rather than actual pain–can impact a patient’s recovery from a low-back injury.  The study found that a patient’s perception after an initial consultation with a chiropractor could largely predict how positive or negative their eventual outcome would be.  Check out the article through one of our client sites, Dr. Daniel Benko in Schererville, IN. The study was notable for investigating the way...