Introduction: Low back pain (LBP) is of common occurrence at all ages due to various causes ranging from congenital abnormalities, sports injuries, work related injuries, osteoporosis and other old age disorders, and rarely cancer. Acute LBP is defined as of less than 4 weeks duration, sub-acute up to12 weeks and chronic after 3 months. Though, a majority of nonspecific mechanical type of LBPs recovers mostly within 4-6 weeks, they too involve costs. In general, there are many more establishe... Read More

Introduction: Trained as a physiotherapist in Australia before jetting off to London and learning from the best in the business, Sarah Key established such a strong reputation that the British Royal Family became her clients in 1983. She has since become a tour de force in the profession and currently practices in both countries, teaches postgraduate physiotherapy, has established a retreat for back pain sufferers and has written a number of books. PHYSIOTIMES feels privileged to bring before... Read More

The sacroiliac joint is homologous to scapulothoracic joint of upper extremity; both of them connect the axial skeleton to the appendicular skeleton. However the SIJ enjoys much lesser freedom than the scapulothoracic joint as it has a lot of constrains bestowed upon it. The pelvis has to protect the visceral organs (done by the rib cage in upper body), act as a stable base for the bony spine, provide anchorage of important muscles of lower limb and trunk and move in rhythm with the lower lim... Read More

Dr.BharatR.Dave, MS(ortho), M.ch (Liverpool, U.K.) is a consultant spine surgeon and HOD, Stavya spine hospital & Research Institute, Ahmedabad. He is a UG & PG Lecturer at SBB College of physiotherapy & PG Research Institute and Honorary Spine Surgeon at V.S. Hospital and NHL Medical College, Ahmedabad. Dr.Dave has a keen interest in research & academic activities& has presented several papers at national and international forums. Dr. Dave has delivered several educationa... Read More

Radiological investigations are routinely ordered for back pain and related conditions by othropaedicians and physiotherapists alike. They provide information that is otherwise unobtainable to help the clinician in decision making. Here we outline a few important considerations to guide the physiotherapists with interpretation of radiology in back pain.

Low Back Pain: Focus on Self Management:  Low back pain is a major health problem around the world which accounts for considerable socioeconomic and healthcare burden. The life time incidence of LBP has been reported between 60-80% (Twomey 2000; O’Sullivan 2005) and out of these incidents in about 80-90% cases pain subsides within first 2-3 months and rest of the patients (around 10-20%) develop chronic pain syndromes (Carey et al 2000). Chronic low back pai... Read More

Have you begun to feel irritated or frustrated with your patients repeated complaints of back pain? Not a single treatment working out… ! And you really could not get the idea of the root cause. Every one of us would have experienced this at least once.

Psychological factors can affect the pain but they rarely seem to be the root cause. Often patient’s sensitivity modulates pain i.e. psychological modulation of pain. There are lots of factors that can vary the patient&r... Read More

Physiotherapists often come across young women who report back pain that has lingered on since their pregnancy.  A second pregnancy can magnify the existing back problem that has not been adequately treated after the first delivery.  Low back pain (LBP) and pelvic girdle pain (PGP) are prevalent worldwide among pregnant women. It is estimated that 20-25% of women suffer from PGP during pregnancy and/or through the postpartum period; a seriously high proportion that warrants professi... Read More

Nineteen years ago I joined the ranks of my patients, experiencing my first episode of back pain. Suddenly I had both empathy and a renewed motivation to find “the answer.” How did I find myself in such a predicament? As a highly trained, aggressive orthopedic physical therapist I knew all of the physical “parts” and how to move those parts, yet my condition continued to deteriorate. The first 15 years of my career focused on a biomechanical understanding of back pain.... Read More

Over the past few decades the field of manual therapy has been consistently dominated by the schools of Maitland, McKenzie and Mulligan. Collectively they form the basic foundations of manual therapy which are still as relevant as they were years ago. Surprisingly, although all three schools have their own distinct perspectives when it comes to manual therapy of spine, all of them appear to work just fine! In this article we will explore the similarities and differences of these three schools... Read More

Prologue: The development of bipedal plantigrade progression is a purely human accomplishment. We share two-legged locomotion with some flightless birds, such as the ostrich, and an arched plantigrade foot with the bear. I sometimes think that we have also retained other characteristics of these animals, namely our ability to bury our heads in the sand and, too often, to act in a "bearish" manner toward our fellow men. However, the orthograde position is exclusively human and permit... Read More

What is the buzz about?-“Ergonomics” is a term thrown around by health professionals and marketing mavens with a cavalier attitude. For some it has a very specific meaning while for others it covers anything and everything under the sun. With all this different verbiage flying, one starts to wonder, “What is Ergonomics?”

Derived from the Greek ergon (work) and nomos (laws) to denote the science of work, ergonomics is a systems-oriented discipline, which now a... Read More

Role in back pain: during the course of our life many of us suffer from some kind of back pain,were in we come across that,without proper guided strength training, we cannot properly rehabilitate a patient, but with mobility restricted, strength training patterns are also very few which can work on strength but will not create any problem with the amount of mobility required for it.The flexibar sends gentle vibrations through the back which relieves tension, addresses the muscle weakness, imp... Read More

1) A pocketbook of managing lower back pain - fraserferguson

If you have recently qualified and  are about to treat patients complaining of low back pain. Questions such as ‘What do I do?’; ‘What do I look for’; ‘How do I do it?’ may suddenly become overwhelming.

2)  Low back pain - Dr.AliAsgharNorasteh

This book includes two sections. Section one is about basic science, epidemiology, risk factors and evaluation, sect... Read More