Clinical Research

THE BACK PROBLEM
LOGICAL TREATMENT BASED ON THE IDENTIFICATION OF CAUSE

Robert Taylor

The symptoms of the back problem include pain, stretched ligaments, excessive wear and tear in the joints and disc prolapse. Until recently, there has been no clear understanding of cause. Available treatments have ranged from magic manipulations to flashing laser lights. All the authoritative studies show that the prognosis is much the same with or without these treatments. Year on year, the provision of ineffectual treatments has grown into a burgeoning industry. Year on year, the back problem has got worse.

The cause of the back problem is to be found in basic physical principles. To function correctly, the spine must be supple and elastic, like the spine of a healthy teenager. As the spine becomes less supple, stresses begin to concentrate at particular points in the spine during activity. Where stresses concentrate, the joints are overstressed. Back pain, stretched ligaments, excessive wear and tear and disc prolapse are the natural consequences of this overstressing.

As the spine loses supple elasticity, the joints at the lumbar-sacral junction (low back) and dorsal-cervical junction (base of the neck) become increasingly overworked and overstressed. This is why, in patient after patient, we find stretched ligaments, excessive wear and tear and disc prolapse in these areas. Idiopathic / enigmatic back pain is distinctive only insofar as the overstressing has yet to cause an observable degree of structural damage.

The solution is to restore supple elasticity and eliminate the overstressing of these joints. Ideally, supple elasticity should be restored before structural damage occurs. Failing that, the restoration of supple elasticity will allow healing processes to do their work unhampered by continual overstressing. If supple elasticity is not restored, the overstressing continues and the prognosis is grim.

In the absence of a clear understanding of cause, treatment has been allowed to degenerate into a mass of electrotherapy and other obscure procedures, none of which restore supple elasticity and relieve the overstressing of the affected joint. Needless to say, these therapies offer no long term benefit and no short term benefit beyond placebo.

If traditional mobilization and manipulation techniques had been adequate, then either by good luck or good judgment, the back problem would have been solved long ago. However, their limitations are fundamental.

With gross mobilization techniques, the therapist can employ their hands, strength and body weight to produce a mobilizing force. However, this mobilizing force is automatically transmitted to the nearest mobile joint. Thus, the mobile joints tend to be exercised while the fixed joints stubbornly remain fixed. Exercises designed to mobilize the spine fail for the same reason.

In focused techniques, therapists use their fingers to apply a mobilizing force directly to the fixed joints. Whilst the procedure is good in principle, it fails because the joints of the spine are much bigger and tougher than the joints of the finger. Many therapists destroy their hands in the attempt but the task is hopeless. The procedure is slow and feeble and the results are far from adequate.

The solution has been to develop a bionic hand. While the therapist retains all the sensitivity and control of their natural fingers, bionics enables the therapist to work with an energy and speed that would otherwise be impossible.

Of comparable importance is functional disorder. Traditional manipulation techniques cannot resolve conditions such as idiopathic scoliosis, kyphosis and lordosis. Abnormal curvatures and patterns of pre-rotated vertebrae have a profound effect on the mechanical efficiency of the spine and the stressing of joints. In reflex mode, the bionic fingers are employed to stimulate reflexes which cause the spine to realign automatically and with unerring accuracy. Abnormal curvatures and patterns of pre-rotated vertebrae are seen to be resolved. This advance has been made possible by the identification of the mechanism which controls the co-ordination and stability of the spine.

With a combination of mobilization and reflex modes, there is virtually no spine which cannot be restored to mechanical efficiency. The benefits are lasting. The restoration of supple elasticity eliminates the overstressing of the affected joints. This is the solution to the back problem.

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THE MANAGEMENT OF BACK PAIN AND THE AVOIDANCE OF DISABILITY

GETTING THE EPIDEMIC OF BAD BACKS UNDER CONTROL WITHOUT EXPENDITURE AND WITH HUGE SAVINGS IN THE FINANCIAL AND HUMAN COST

by Robert Taylor

Introduction

When someone complains of a bad back they mean a persistent problem and a degree of disability. Most people will experience a back pain episode at some time in their life. Back pain episodes are self-limiting and isolated episodes imply nothing sinister. Of far greater concern is the slide into disability.

The cause of the common back complaint is unmasked by rudimentary observation and simple experimentation. It is a mechanical issue as distinct from a medical condition and the remedy is simple. Even patients with long histories can make a prompt and lasting recovery. In most cases, no treatment is required. Popular treatments are part of the problem, not part of the solution. It is mismanagement of the complaint that is fuelling the epidemic of bad backs. Detailed patient histories indicate that the slide into disability is primarily attributable to the influence and practice of alternative medicine. With a change of management, disability is resolved¹.

While the true cost of chronic back pain must be measured both in financial and human terms, in the UK the scale of the problem is reflected in the cost to industry, the expenditure on incapacity benefit and the cost to our National Health Service (NHS). Being both the largest employer and the healthcare provider, it is an appalling drain on the NHS at a time of impending austerity. Industry is struggling and the expenditure on incapacity benefit is running at twice the cost of funding the NHS. It is intolerable that, in the 21st Century, mismanagement of a rudimentary complaint is allowed to consume billions and ruin lives.

The explanation that follows is designed to be accessible to laymen as well as physicians. Concerned parties include government, employers, journalists and the general public. Most particularly, the public must understand the road to disability if they are to avoid it.