Low Back Pain self-management
Published: 01/06/2020
2. Management strategies such as exercise
Why we experience pain
Pain is the body's protective mechanism to avoid damage or harm. This harm can be percevied by the brain or an actual danger.
Let's use a paper cut as an example, when we get a paper cut it causes damage to the skin, this damage triggers the pain receptors in your skin. These receptors cause a brain signal to go to the brain to say 'hi brain, my skin hurts!'.
However, this system has it's limitations. Pain is a protective mechanism, but it is not an accurate measure of damage. A small paper cut is really painful, yet a larger cut can be less painful.
In summary, pain does not equal harm
Videos explaining pain further
Understanding Pain in less than 5 minutes, and what to do about it
Tame the Beast
These are stretches and exercises recommended by a qualified physiotherapy to reduce back pain symptoms.
Useful resources
Feedback
Please put any constructive comments on how this webpage can be improved into the comments box. Thank you.
Disclaimer: Information on this page is about non-specific back pain management for patients, but was written as a resource for physiotherapy students to inform their treatment plan.
Overview
1. A brief summary of back pain and why we experience pain2. Management strategies such as exercise
Patient education
Back pain
The most common form of back pain is called "non-specific back pain", which means pain that is not caused by a single factor. This type of pain can be provoked by a range of triggers such as poor posture and lack of exercise (causing the muscles around the spine to stiffen).
A booklet which explains this further
This booklet from Arthritis Research UK, explains back pain simply.
Pain is the body's protective mechanism to avoid damage or harm. This harm can be percevied by the brain or an actual danger.
Let's use a paper cut as an example, when we get a paper cut it causes damage to the skin, this damage triggers the pain receptors in your skin. These receptors cause a brain signal to go to the brain to say 'hi brain, my skin hurts!'.
However, this system has it's limitations. Pain is a protective mechanism, but it is not an accurate measure of damage. A small paper cut is really painful, yet a larger cut can be less painful.
In summary, pain does not equal harm
Videos explaining pain further
Understanding Pain in less than 5 minutes, and what to do about it
Tame the Beast
Exercise and movement
Recommended stretches and exercisesThese are stretches and exercises recommended by a qualified physiotherapy to reduce back pain symptoms.
Useful resources
Airaksinen, O., Brox, J.I., Cedraschi, C., Hildebrandt, J.,
Klaber-Moffett, J., Kovac, F., Mannion, A.F., Reis, S., Staal, J.B., Ursin, H.
and Zanoli, G. (2006) ‘Chapter 4 European guidelines for the management of
chronic nonspecific low back pain’, European Spine Journal, 15 (suppl.
2) pp.S192-S300.
Jackson, A., Hettinga, D.M., Mead, J. and Mercer, C. (2009)
‘Using consensus methods in developing clinical guidelines for exercise in
managing persistent low back pain’, Physiotherapy, 94, pp.302-313.
Louw, A., Zimmey, K., Puentedura, E.J. and Diener, I. (2016)
‘The efficacy of pain neuroscience education on musculoskeletal pain: A
systematic review of the literature’, Physiotherapy Theory and Practice,
32(5), pp.332-335.
May, S. and Johnson, R. (2008) ‘Stabilisation exercises for
low back pain: a systematic review’, Physiotherapy, 94, pp.179-189.
NICE (2018) Back pain - low (without radiculopathy).
Available at: https://cks.nice.org.uk/back-pain-low-without-radiculopathy#!scenario.
(Accessed: 29 May 2020).
Please put any constructive comments on how this webpage can be improved into the comments box. Thank you.
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