A good video on Joint Hypermobility Syndrome.

This video is by Professor Rodney Grahame, who is a specialist on joint hypermobility. It’s well worth a listen if you have an interest in the subject.

Dr. Helene Langevin: The Science of Stretch

I watched this video by Dr Helene Langevin and thought it was excellent. If you have an interest in Acupuncture, Body Work or Health I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.

 

 

The Back Pain Epidemic.

Low back and neck pain is an increasingly widespread and expensive condition worldwide, costing the US alone $88bn a year – the third highest bill for any health condition.

Millions of people worldwide suffer from low back and neck pain, most of it unexplained, although some professionals think it may be worsened by sitting at desks all day, carrying bags and general bad posture. Episodes of acute pain are very common, but experts say that medical investigations only make things worse and the best cure is often to take painkillers, exercise gently and wait for the pain to pass.

Whiplash study says no benefits from intensive treatment

Intensive whiplash treatment is no better than standard care, a study suggests.

The study, in the Lancet looked at the treatment of more than 2,700 people with mild to moderate whiplash.

No additional benefits were seen in those who had more intensive care – which included suggesting a rapid return to normal activities.

A Canadian expert said the study showed the lack of benefit from “unnecessary treatments”.

Whiplash injuries cost the UK economy about £3.1bn a year, mainly due to the expense of treating those with chronic symptoms (between 30-50%) and their subsequent need to take time off work.

Long-term problems can include pain from even the smallest movement, difficulty sleeping and even being unable to work.

Let go of outdated paradigms and stop dwelling on Biomechanical tissue-based models when treating Back Pain.

This was the message from CSP fellow Dr Mick Thacker, director of the ‘Pain: Science and Society’ MSc course at King’s College London.

Giving a keynote lecture, Dr Thacker advised delegates to move away from purely mechanical-based therapies for back pain patients, and become more aware of the role of neuro-immnunology in relation to pain.

“Traditional physiotherapy has based its management of back pain on anatomical, tissue-based principles and biomechanics”, said Dr Thacker.

Gene flaw linked to Low Back Pain

Scientists have identified a gene flaw linked to disc problems that are a common cause of lower back pain.

The UK study, published in the Annals of Rheumatic Diseases, looked at 4,600 people and found the PARK2 gene was linked to age-related disc problems.

A third of middle-aged women have problems with at least one spinal disc – and the condition is known to be inherited in up to 80% of patients.

Experts said finding the gene could lead to new treatments being developed.

Back pain costs the UK about £7bn a year in sickness leave and treatment costs, but the causes of the condition are not fully understood.

In lumbar disc degeneration (LDD), discs become dehydrated and lose height, and the vertebrae next to them develop bony growths called osteophytes, leading to lower back pain.

The King’s College London researchers carried out MRI scans of all those in the study and looked at differences in their genetic make-up.

‘Nano pit’ technique to extend life of hip replacements

A Scottish team of biologists, nano-engineers and surgeons has come up with a new technique which could mean hip replacements that last a lifetime.

The researchers want to coat key surfaces with a “nano-pattern” pitted plastic to encourage stem cells to form bone in contact with the new joint.

The system aims to combat problems with the body forming soft tissues around hip replacements.

Work is under way to develop prototype devices over the coming years.

It’s the potential solution to a problem which faces everyone who gets a new hip – it won’t stay new.

You’ll be lucky to get 15 years out of it before your hip replacement needs to be replaced.

Consultant orthopaedic surgeon Dominic Meek, from Glasgow’s Southern General Hospital, said the hip replacement procedure had become a victim of its own success.

“One of the problems is that it’s been so successful that we’ve been putting them into a lot more, younger patients – and they’re a lot more active,” he said.

“So because of this they’ve been wearing out these hip joints.”

The Brains Drain System

The brain drain is real. There is a network of previously unrecognised vessels that rid the brain of unwanted extracellular fluids and other substances, including amyloid-beta – a peptide that accumulates in the brain of people with Alzheimer’s. The new discovery looks set to add to our understanding of the disease.

Jeffrey Iliff at the University of Rochester Medical Centre, New York, and his colleagues, were intrigued by the fact that there are no obvious lymphatic vessels in the brain. Among other things, the lymphatic system removes waste interstitial fluids from body tissue.

“It seemed strange that such an important and active organ wouldn’t have a specialised waste-removal system,” says Iliff.

When the researchers added fluorescent and radioactive tracers to the cerebrospinal fluid of live mice, the tracers quickly spread throughout the rodents’ brains. Using two-photon microscopy to visualise the movement in real-time, the team saw cerebrospinal fluid permeating the entire brain through ‘pipes’ surrounding blood vessels, similar to the lymphatic system that services all other organs.

The pipes work on hydraulic principles, though, and so the system breaks upon opening, making it hard to identify it outside living organisms.

Whiplash Injuries & Trigger Points

Persistent muscle pain following whiplash is commonly considered the result of poor psychosocial status, illness behaviour, or failing coping skills. However, there is much evidence that this persistent  pain may be due to neurophysiologic mechanisms involving peripheral and central nerve sensitisation. Myofascial trigger points may play a crucial role in maintaing this sensitisation. Recent research suggests that the chemical environment of myofascial trigger points is an important factor. Several consequences are reviewed when central pain mechanisms and myofascial trigger points are included in the differential diagnosis and in the management of patients with persistent pain following whiplash.

Pain really is “All in the Mind”

Doctors and nurses have known for many years that some people are more sensitive to pain than others. Now brain scans of people experiencing the same painful stimulus have provided the first proof that this is so. But the scans also suggest that how much something hurts really is “all in the mind”.

“We saw a huge variation between responses to the same stimulus,” says project leader Bob Coghill of the Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. “The message is: trust what patients are telling you.”