Throughout history various illnesses have surfaced and become so commonplace that they are termed epidemics. In recent times these have included such illnesses as measles, polio, and small pox. After devastating millions of lives, the medical community begins to focus acutely on these illnesses and develops a vaccine to prevent them from spreading. In other words, researchers develop a preventative measure that allows the body to use its own defense mechanisms to prevent the occurrence of the illness.
Currently there is an epidemic that will affect as many as eighty percent of people throughout the world at some time in their life. This illness is back pain. For many reasons, modern medicine has not been able to apply the principle of developing a vaccine to prevent the current epidemic of back pain. Is it possible to truly devise a vaccine for something that is an epidemic, but caused by physical dysfunction rather than physical disease? My firm answer is a resounding YES! The reason I believe a vaccine has not been developed for back pain is not because it is impossible, it is because those who are the experts in dysfunction, namely physical therapists, orthopedists, and physiatrists have not done their part in developing this vaccine. I have decided it is time to change that. The majority of my day is spent trying to correct back injury and prevent it from ever reoccurring. The key is to change the focus from preventing reoccurrence and prevent the back injury from ever occurring in the first place.
Although commonly cited statistics may be used in this book, this is not intended to be a summary of all the thousands of studies on back pain and back injuries. Because the statistics regarding workplace injuries and other related back injuries are so acutely monitored, any statistics cited at this time would be outdated within only a few years. It is not the design of this book to focus on a narrow view of current statistics or studies but rather on the overall picture they provide. With this approach, every individual who comes in contact with this book should walk away with the conviction that enough knowledge exists to conclude that a universal vaccine to prevent significant back pain exists. Let the medical community debate the issue all they want. The reality is, as I am sure that anyone who puts it to the test will agree, that a vaccine exists. If the principles of this vaccine are put into practice in the life of every individual, just like many other illnesses that have crippled man for ages, it can turn what was once an epidemic into something of the past.
The conviction that this vaccine works is not based on the mixed conclusions written in current research, nor is it based on any formal research of my own. The belief comes purely from what I have experienced time and time again in the clinic with patients of my own. The reasons why this vaccine will work are based on three observations.
The first observation is that individuals who take care of their backs by conditioning and using prevention techniques on a regular basis experience significantly less pain and injury. The second reason I believe the vaccine works is that those individuals who abide by its principles usually overcome the majority of back injuries. The third reason I believe in the vaccine is that following medical treatment, rehabilitation, and education in the clinic, it is rare that a patient ever comes back for treatment again. The very small percentage that do return, approximately two to three percent of all patients, without exception eventually admit that they have not faithfully performed the necessary exercises and back-care principles they learned and performed while in treatment. In other words, once an individual learns to apply the vaccine, they seldom, if ever, experience a significant back injury!
These reasons provide enough evidence by themselves as to why the vaccine works. However, for those skeptics out there, I want to mention a report by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) on musculoskeletal disorders and the workplace. This study was prompted by a request from the United States Congress to review the available scientific evidence regarding the relationship of back and upper extremity problems to work exposures. They were to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the evidence, assess the potential for prevention of these disorders, and recommend a research agenda for the future. What was one of their main conclusions? "In its simplest form, the attributable risk is a measure that suggests that if the offending exposure were removed (by intervention or regulation), then the amount of the disease outcomes would be estimated to be reduced by the calculated amount." (12)
In other words, a group of top experts looked at everything that has been researched about back pain in the United States and have concluded that if the principle factors causing the back pain are reduced, the incidence of back pain will be reduced accordingly. What that means is that back pain is preventable! This same report suggested that up to seventy percent of recorded back pain incidents might be prevented (12). If the causes of the pain can be identified and eliminated, the research would agree that back pain is not an inevitable, will-always-exist phenomena. It is something that can possibly be decreased, if not eliminated. How? The answer is right here in the back pain vaccine.
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