Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Looking Back: Some Reflections on the Prevention and Treatment of Low Back Pain
    Looking Back: Some Reflections on the Prevention and Treatment of Low Back Pain
    Looking Back: Some Reflections on the Prevention and Treatment of Low Back Pain
    Ebook142 pages1 hour

    Looking Back: Some Reflections on the Prevention and Treatment of Low Back Pain

    By Cecil Taitz

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    'Looking Back' is a compendium of ideas,observations and reflections that span many years of experience treating patients with low-back pain. A question and answer format is used that allows the reader to 'browse' and select only those items of particular interest. However,footnotes are included that do allow a more in-depth appreciation of the subject if needed.Reader-friendly sketches also convey an added dimension. In essence the book draws attention to the biomechanical restraints of the lumbar region and the necessity  of freeing the pelvis from these restraints to avoid back pain.The importance of body awareness is also stressed.This incorporates teamwork of muscles, balance,position sense and 'seeing with eyes closed.The role of body type in planning an exercise program is discussed in some depth.The concluding Section of the book describes a step-by-step common-sense approach to the treatment of low-back pain and how to prevent future episodes of pain.'
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHillcrest Media Group
    Release dateOct 31, 2014
    ISBN9781634131032
    Looking Back: Some Reflections on the Prevention and Treatment of Low Back Pain

    Related to Looking Back

    Related ebooks

    Medical For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Ready Or Not?

      Oct 20, 2021

      Ready Or Not?
      5 min read

    • Article

      Corrective Exercise

      Dec 20, 2019

      Corrective Exercise
      2 min read

    • Article

      Brogi Boy

      Jan 19, 2022

      Brogi Boy
      4 min read

    • Article

      Raising the American Weakling

      Feb 9, 2017

      When she was a practicing occupational therapist, Elizabeth Fain started noticing something odd in her clinic: Her patients were weak. More specifically, their grip strengths, recorded via a hand-held dynamometer, were “not anywhere close to the norm

      10 min read

    • Article

      The Power Of Your Breath

      Sep 3, 2020

      The Power Of Your Breath
      4 min read

    • Article

      Muscle Imbalance

      Dec 21, 2020

      Muscle Imbalance
      5 min read

    • Article

      Relief Effort

      Jun 6, 2021

      Relief Effort
      8 min read

    • Article

      Back On Track

      Feb 14, 2018

      Back On Track
      19 min read

    • Article

      Fascia, Psoas and Injury

      Apr 1, 2019

      Fascia, Psoas and Injury
      4 min read

    • Article

      Getting Off Your Nerves

      Jul 21, 2019

      Getting Off Your Nerves
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Muscle We All Forget About

      Jun 2, 2019

      The Muscle We All Forget About
      3 min read

    • Article

      Back In Line

      Sep 22, 2019

      If you look at an anatomical picture of the human skeleton, it’s easy to assume that being fully symmetrical is the norm. But it’s extremely rare for us to stand equally weighted on both feet, unless instructed to do so in an exercise class. Habitual

      2 min read

    • Article

      Beating Sciatica

      Aug 20, 2023

      Beating Sciatica
      4 min read

    • Article

      How To Deal With Back Pain

      Jul 1, 2019

      Back pain can be the bane of business travel: long hours spent sitting down in airplane seats, in the back of taxis and then in meetings at your destination. Common problems include sciatica, often caused by a disc hernia or “slipped disc”. Low back

      2 min read

    • Article

      Beat BACK PAIN For Good!

      Dec 23, 2021

      Beat BACK PAIN For Good!
      3 min read

    • Article

      A Hidden Cause Of Pain?

      Jan 17, 2023

      A Hidden Cause Of Pain?
      3 min read

    • Article

      Back Pain Myths Debunked

      Oct 21, 2021

      Back Pain Myths Debunked
      8 min read

    • Article

      Stiff Bows, Stiff Joints?

      Apr 16, 2021

      Stiff Bows, Stiff Joints?
      6 min read

    • Article

      When NOT To Stretch

      May 21, 2020

      When NOT To Stretch
      4 min read

    • Article

      Boost Your Fascia Fitness

      Apr 21, 2023

      Boost Your Fascia Fitness
      4 min read

    • Article

      Living Well

      Jul 2, 2020

      Living Well
      2 min read

    • Article

      Managing And Preventing Lower Back Pain

      Mar 15, 2024

      Lower back pain is the most common reason people visit a physical therapist and an orthopedic surgeon. Most kayakers will face lower back pain— if they haven’t already—and if not dealt with correctly, it can extremely limit a paddling career. The goo

      3 min read

    • Article

      Feeding Your Mystery Organ

      Jul 26, 2020

      Feeding Your Mystery Organ
      7 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Looking Back

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Looking Back - Cecil Taitz

      Ponder

      Dedicated to past students who shared my enthusiasm for anatomy and in the dictum, the more we know, the more we know how little we know!

      Acknowledgments

      Grateful acknowledgment is made to Professor Bernard Levinson for sharing his experience of the Tai Chi system of balance and coordination.

      A big thank-you to Fran Milner, medical Illustrator, for her ability to bring a smile to an otherwise serious subject.

      Introduction

      Why another book on back pain? Why, indeed? So much has been expounded on the subject; libraries, bookshops, and cyberspace abound with words of wisdom on how to overcome this debilitating affliction, yet the incidence of back pain and cries for help continue unabated. The good news, though, is that in the majority of cases, back pain is a self-limiting condition with time as the great healer. For those not so fortunate, it is an ongoing trial-and-error regime, going from one mode of treatment to another. In many instances, particularly when pain is persistent, surgical intervention may be the only option, with varying results.

      As spine pain occurs most frequently in the weight-bearing lumbar region, we could question whether our upright posture and associated bipedal gait, inherited from distant ancestors, is responsible for the back pain that is so prevalent among us today. One would expect that by now, natural selection would have operated against this susceptibility, as bipedalism appears to have been established some three million years ago or even earlier. In this regard, biologist Kenneth Miller succinctly states: Evolution has taken a spinal column well adapted for horizontal, four-footed locomotion and pressed it into vertical bipedal service. It works pretty well, but every now and then, the stresses and strains of this new orientation are too much for the old structure. Intelligent Design could have produced a trouble-free support for upright posture, but evolution was constrained by a structure* that was already there ¹

      * One should note that in standing, part of the articular cartilage of the head of the femur is exposed, whereas in the quadruped posture, the head of the femur lies completely in the acetabulum.² Thus, anatomically speaking, evolution has not caught up with the true physiological position of the hip (i.e., on all fours). One could postulate that in the upright posture, the lack of congruence of articular cartilage between the femoral head and acetabulum may well be a contributing factor for the many gravity-induced hip disorders suffered later in life.

      Some clinicians and nutritionists incriminate the dietary habits adopted by Western society over the past hundred years as a possible cause of heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, and some types of cancer. Similarly, it is reasonable to suggest that our back pain could partly be the result of our high-tech. cultural evolution and associated sedentary lifestyle, rather than the adoption of our upright posture. Our lives today are very different from those of our hunter-gatherer ancestors, whose way of life developed a finely tuned neuromuscular system, on which their very survival depended. In today’s world, so many of us live a relatively sedentary lifestyle, with too many hours spent sitting in the car, at the computer, or in front of the television. What we have to accept is that most of us are out of touch with our bodies and thus lulled into a false sense of security—until back pain strikes.

      It is interesting to note that the word pain is derived from the Latin poena, for punishment or penalty, as is the modern French word peine.³ This concept of penalty ties in with many of the Eastern philosophies, where cause and effect play an essential role in their belief systems; that is, according to them, whatever happens to us is a direct result of our own doings in this life or in a previous incarnation. With their philosophy, they learn acceptance of whatever befalls them, good or bad. You may well exclaim, What has this got to do with me? Are you asking me to accept my excruciating back pain as something I deserve? No, not at all! At the cost of being repetitive, we have to accept that a major factor precipitating our back pain is being out of sync with our bodies and, in particular, with our neuromuscular systems. At this juncture, you may well ask, What about the so-called normal degenerative changes of the intervertebral discs and joints that occur with aging? Surely no amount of training in body awareness can be of use. Well first, we have to recognize that marked spondylotic (aging) changes do not appear to correlate with back pain. Some patients may have radiological evidence of narrowing of the intervertebral discs,* osteophytosis, osteoporosis, Paget’s disease, and other disorders of the spine without any back-pain symptoms. Of course, if incorrect lifting techniques or hazardous occupations are carried out with underlying spinal pathology, they may indeed lead to back pain and perhaps even surgical intervention.

      Surprisingly, patients who normally complain of pain in the lumbar spine often suffer less pain with age, due, perhaps, to dehydration of the intervertebral discs and stiffening of the ligaments, which serve to immobilize the spine and thus prevent pain aggravated by movement.⁴ One should also bear in mind that back pain may be referred from other organ-related disorders, such as gynecological, prostate, hernia, or kidney stones.

      * The term slipped disc, so often cited as a cause of back pain, is a misnomer, as the intervertebral disc consists of a gel-like core (the nucleus pulposus), encased in surrounding layers of concentric fibrous rings (anulus fibrosus). The entire structure is tightly bound to the bony vertebrae by accompanying ligaments and thus cannot slip. It also should be noted than in the mature human spine, there are no nerve fibers in the intervertebral disc, except for the posterior fibers of the anulus fibrosus. However, pain may be associated with the disc due to a central disc protrusion, or herniation, encroaching or impinging on surrounding nerves or nerve roots.

      This book is a compendium of ideas, observations, and reflections that span many years of experience with patients suffering low-back pain. Although the cries

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1