Why Does My Back Hurt? The Biomechanics of back pain explained
Your ‘backbone’ or spine comprises a series of separate bones (vertebrae) joined together by deformable intervertebral discs, which are tough gristle-like pads of cartilage. Adjacent vertebrae are also connected by small sliding joints, the apophyseal, or facet, joints (Figure 1), and by ligaments which are tough fibrous bands. All of these structures, including the discs, […]
The Hero who showed us that surgery treats spinal cancer better than radiotherapy alone
In 2005, Dr Patchell and his colleagues published ground-breaking research into spinal cancer in the Lancet. For the first time, this group proved that when cancer has spread to the spine and starts to compress the spinal cord, tackling the spinal cord compression directly with surgery resulted in a better chance of stopping paralysis compared […]
The Advantage of Standing Tall
When you get in the car in the morning, you will probably feel awake, motivated and set up for the day ahead. You fasten your seatbelt and adjust your rear view mirror before setting off by tilting it upwards. Ignition on and off to go! You arrive at work, once you’ve finally found a place […]
The ankle reflex predicts outcome after lumbar disc surgery?
An ankle reflex is a test of mainly the first sacral nerve root, or S1 as an abbreviation. When S1 is working normally, a small strike of the achilles tendon , also called calcaneal tendon, with a tendon hammer causes the muscle attached to the tendon, gastrocnemius, to contract, which in turn causes the foot to flex […]
Doctor’s Orders- Go to the Pub (Med)
Pubmed, is a free online library with over 25 million scientific articles referenced. This online resource is commonly used by health professionals and health researchers alike, to search for journal articles published in relation to pretty much anything which is health-related. For most of us, it’s a daunting idea to start trawling through medical jargon in search of answers, […]