The New York Times posted a really interesting article this week (click here if you want to read it), about the effectiveness (or otherwise), of common surgical procedures. We kind of assume that a doctor won’t recommend surgery for us unless we really need it, and unless it’s going to fix us. After all, there are significant risks and costs involved in surgery, so there must be compelling reasons for them to recommend it, right? Turns out that may not be the case.
As they noted, surgery is not regulated in the …

There has been a lot of research over the years on the best way to warm up. Athletes want to know the right way to do it so that they can do their best performance when it counts. But it’s equally important to be able to reduce the risk of injury so you can run hard without hurting yourself. Is there a way to warm up that achieves both goals – optimal performance and minimal risk of injury? Should you do static stretching or dynamic stretching? Should you jog and …

One of the most researched topics in sports medicine is whether or not injuries can be prevented. Sport is big business these days, so there is a lot of interest in finding ways to ensure star athletes can perform at a high level without suffering injuries. With all this research has anyone found any proven ways to prevent running injuries?
A little over a year ago I spoke at seminar with a Physiotherapist by the name of Toby Watson. We were trying to compare the way Physiotherapists and Osteopaths treat common …

In my work with athletes, ranging from park runners up to World and Olympic champions, one of the key differences I’ve seen that separates the elite is that they know when to push themselves, and they know when to back off. They know that missing half a session because you’re concerned about an injury is better than pushing on, getting hurt, and then missing an entire week, if not more. The number one priority, no matter what event you are training for, is to get to the starting line in …

Here is a great article I just read which outlines in basic terms the key differences between back pain that is straightforward and musculo-skeletal in nature, and back pain that is coming from a more serious underlying condition. A lot of times when the pain is severe it can be extremely concerning, and this article helps explain a lot of what is going on.
Some key points:
People understandably assume that the worst back pain is the scariest. In fact, pain intensity is a poor indicator of back pain ominousness.
Herniated discs aren’t …

As you’ve no doubt recently heard, there are calls to make codeine a prescription drug. It is currently an over the counter pain reliever and something that a lot of people routinely use. Chances are you have used it yourself and if so, you may wonder what all the fuss is about. A new report published in The Medical Observer says that for the decade 2000-2009 the number of deaths from taking codeine in Australia more than doubled. Here are some of the key points from the article:

Almost half of these …

A new study, which followed 382 75 year-olds for 8 years, has concluded that low levels of vitamin D “may accelerate cognitive decline in older adults”. The subjects were examined to test their episodic memory, semantic memory, visual perception, and executive function.
They found that participants with signs of dementia had lower levels of vitamin D than those with either no cognitive impairment or only mild cognitive impairment.Also, “insufficient vitamin D was linked to much faster declines in episodic memory (recollection of people, places, and events), and executive function (your ability …

As an Osteopath I see a lot of people with disc injuries. People are understandably concerned about doing damage to their discs, as they play an important role in the structural integrity of the spine, and live very close to nerves and the spinal cord, so they can cause a lot of pain and other problems.
There have been a number of studies where researchers take members of the general population and perform scans on them. they are trying to find out how many people actually have a particular injury. For …

What I’m going to look at in this posting relates to how quickly one should start addressing a complaint of low back pain. Historically, people suffering from low back pain have been told to rest, sometimes for very long periods. It’s time to right this wrong.
I have treated plenty of people who 20 years ago were given a neck collar for a minor car crash and wore it for 3 months despite no evidence of any tissue damage, because “that was what they did back then”. Researchers have compared the …

Apparently not! Even I thought it was but the results of a new study (to read it click here) have found that “not only does running not cause osteoarthritis in the knee, it may even help to keep the problem at bay”.
The study followed 2863 people and found that “runners, regardless of the age they were when they ran, had less knee pain and osteoarthritis.”
This supported another previous study of 74,00 people from 2013 which “found that running significantly reduced the risk of both osteoarthritis and knee replacement.”
Some other choice quotes …