Have you experienced back pain before? Yes? It
is common to fear its return, but do
not let it hijack your life! This holiday
season, consider Santa. Think he’s experienced
back pain before moving all those packages
and parcels? Paulette Hugulet, DC, LLC expects he has!
Santa can’t quit, and neither can you. La Grande
chiropractic care can help you deal with new back pain and chronic
back pain and lead our La Grande back pain
sufferers to be a bit less fearful and a bit more confident getting around this holiday season.
FEAR OF BENDING
Your La Grande chiropractor knows
this: many low back pain patients fear bending forward. Researchers looked
into this common clinical finding and found that this fear of bending forward also influences postural sway or balance by interfering
with hip balance control, bringing about weight shifting from
side to side to maintain balance. (1) What is an unwanted
consequence of being off-balance? A fall. Paulette Hugulet, DC, LLC
finds it very critical to help our back pain patients –
especially our older back pain patients – stay balanced and upright!
HELP TO KEEP BALANCE AND DECREASE FEAR
“There is an app for that!” Just what our
older La Grande chiropractic patients with balance issues want to
hear?! As much as “tech” can annoy some of its users,
particularly some older users, it can help! The new
smartphone-based Gait&Balance App is available.
Researchers have verified that it is able to measure
age-related differences in balance not typically picked
up via clinical exam measurements like postural stability,
step time, step length and cycle. (2) These insights can help
healthcare providers like your chiropractor create a more beneficial
and individualized treatment plan to decrease fear of movement and
improve balance. This is quite hopeful, so much so that chiropractic
researchers are exerting more research effort
to measure the benefits of multimodal chiropractic care in its
ability to affect gait, balance and/or fall risk and
prevention. (3) One encouraging study with older lumbar spinal
stenosis patients (average age 83.5 years) found that their postural sway and
entropy as well as function and symptomatology were improved
with a course of chiropractic care including Cox® Technic Flexion Distraction Decompression
spinal manipulation. (4) Paulette Hugulet, DC, LLC offers this treatment along
with nutrition and exercise to keep
our chiropractic patients moving, fearless, and balanced!
BIOMARKERS FOR BACK PAIN
One new nutrition finding this month
may also aid this effort. It comes from researchers evaluating
levels of biomarkers – C-reactive protein, vitamin D, neuropeptide Y and others
- in low back pain patients tested via blood tests with pain
and disability. Vitamin D which appears in many health
news reports today also appears to be a potential biomarker for
back pain relief and disability. A respected randomized control study
found a relationship between vitamin D levels and changes
in both pain and disability for low back pain patients treated with
spinal manipulation. (5) One day, we may do blood tests to manage risks for back pain!
CONTACT Paulette Hugulet, DC, LLC
Listen to this PODCAST
with Dr. Joel Dixon on The Back Doctors
Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he illustrates his helping
a Vietnam veteran deal with his back pain for 20 years,
incorporating the Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management.
Schedule your La Grande chiropractic
appointment soon. Calling all our La Grande back pain patients!
Bring us your back pain and your fear of back pain, bending and falling. We can
help you handle them as well as Santa fearlessly and efficiently delivers
all his presents in one night!