Medical Spine and Sports Injury and Rehab Centers Helps Back Pain Sufferers Fight Fear Avoidance and Move More
Fear of back pain? Once you’ve had it, you answer “yes!” Your Baton Rouge chiropractor totally understands it. Baton Rouge back pain and neck pain patients do not want to feel that pain again. Medical Spine and Sports Injury and Rehab Centers helps spine pain sufferers regain their confidence with encouragement and exercise.
FEAR AVOIDANCE DUE TO BACK PAIN
Back pain sufferers don't want to revisit back pain if they have any options at all. That desire - whether obvious or subtle, stated or just ruminated in the mind – establishes the ‘perfect storm’ for a behavior called fear-avoidance. Patients with persistent spinal pain syndrome - post-surgically induced or not – elicited high levels of fear avoidance, anxiety, and depression. (1) Researchers noted that the pain experience is not just physical as emotions, behaviors and beliefs are involved as well. Fear avoidant behavior like fearing the act of lifting an object grows and affects muscle behavior without realizing it. A new study compared fear-avoidant beliefs and the use of lumbar paraspinal muscle activity while lifting in both back pain and in pain-free persons. Fear of lifting an object with a flexed spine as described in a questionnaire was negatively related with erector spinae activity to protect the spine from harm. The proper way to lift has been debated through the years. Lifting with a straight back has been portrayed as safer than lifting with a flexed back though research has not really supported that while lifting with a lordotic posture has been reported to result in more erector spinae muscle activity resulting in muscle fatigue and pain. (2) Medical Spine and Sports Injury and Rehab Centers recognizes the significance of handling fear avoidance and its link to better quality of life.
HOW TO MANAGE FEAR AVOIDANCE
Researchers wrote that back pain sufferers today ‘get’ that they must keep moving but some require a bit more support and encouragement to move and exercise due to a lack of confidence in their spines’ ability to exercise without causing pain. The healthcare provider not only can give the latest findings on pain control but also coach the back pain patient to be physical in the safest way possible. (3) If you’re that patient, Medical Spine and Sports Injury and Rehab Centers is your coach! We are a team and can help you move easier and with less fear and deliver gentle, relieving spinal manipulation. 12 weeks of chiropractic manipulation and exercise for older adults with chronic back pain improved their self-efficacy and fear-avoidant behaviors together with decreases in disability. A 30% or more drop in the Oswestry Disability Index indicated positive response to care. (4) The more engaged a patient is with treatment, the greater the influence on the feeling of self-efficacy and disability reduction. (5) Let us work together to manage your Baton Rouge back pain so it doesn’t control you.
CONTACT Medical Spine and Sports Injury and Rehab Centers
Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. Tom Menendez on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he illustrates the relief with The Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management for an older patient with back pain for whom fear avoidance is logical.
Schedule your Baton Rouge chiropractic appointment soon so that if you are questioned whether you fear back pain, you can say “no”!
