Neck & Back Pain

Overview

Neck and back pain go back as far as recorded history and are still common complaints. In the past, treatment has been mainly activity avoidance and rest. The current research, however, shows that a different approach to neck and back pain is more beneficial. A review of the recommended treatment will be broken down into pain control, activity and action.

Back Pain

Low back pain (LBP) is the fifth most common reason for physician visits, which affects nearly 60-80% of people throughout their lifetime. The lifetime prevalence of low back pain is reported to be as high as 84%, and the prevalence of chronic low back pain is about 23%, with 11-12% of the population being disabled by low back pain.

Physiotherapy assessment aims to identify impairments that may have contributed to the onset of the pain, or increase the likelihood of developing persistent pain. These include biological factors (eg. weakness, stiffness), psychological factors (eg. depression, fear of movement and catastrophisation) and social factors (eg. work environment). [Source]

Neck Pain

‘Text neck’ is a modern age term coined to describe repeated stress injury and pain in the neck resulting from excessive watching or texting on hand held devices, laptops, or smartphones over a sustained period of time. It is also often known as Turtle Neck posture. It is a cause for increasing concern especially with younger generations given their greater propensity to mobile phone usage, but can affect anyone with increased device usage.

Apart from neck pain, it can also cause shoulder pain, upper back pain, headaches and increased thoracic kyphosis.

Rehabilitation to include manual therapy, exercise prescription, and posture education have been found to to be very effective in treating the stress injury resulting from Text Neck. [Source]