Lumbar spinal stenosis is a relatively common condition in older adults with an estimated incidence of 1 in every 1000 adults over 65 years old. Age related changes in the spine lead to increased weight bearing across the posterior elements of the spine, arthritic changes in spinal joints, and decreased cross sectional area in the...
The old saying that you can’t unring a bell is true in imaging for musculoskeletal conditions. Most patients cannot unsee their MRI results despite improvements in their symptoms and activity level with Physical Therapy treatments. Once terms such as bulging or degeneration have been utilized to describe their spines they never regain full confidence in...
Many of our outdated theories on why individuals have muscle and joint pain have been questioned and disproven by more recent research studies. One example includes the association between running and future knee osteoarthritis. Instead of confirming the old theory based on the wear and tear hypothesis moderate running has been shown to have a...
The black and white areas of health care are easy to navigate but the grey areas separate the novice from the experienced clinician. Uncertainty is part of health care and often clinicians make absolute statements in order to make themselves more comfortable in the grey areas of practice. In Physical Therapy, statements including “do not...
Early access to Physical Therapy services (direct access) has been previously shown to reduce a patient’s cost of care by up to $1500. In addition to its’ cost savings, direct access to Physical Therapy treatment has been shown to be a safe and effective short and long term treatment plan for patients with musculoskeletal pain....
Lumbar spinal stenosis is a narrowing of the bony canals in the spine which surround the nerves which supply our lower extremities. The condition is common among aging adults, > 60 years old, and can lead to symptoms such as single or bilateral leg pain, numbness, pins and needles, and/or weakness. Often leg symptoms are...
Low back pain, along with death and taxes, remains one of the certainties of life. This condition affects over 90% of Americans and is often benign, but painful, in nature. Currently spending on low back pain is over 100 billion dollars a year and much of this spending can be attributed to unnecessary and unwarranted...
Low back pain remains the most common musculoskeletal diagnosis seen by primary care providers including Physical Therapists. While the majority of cases of low back pain are not serious in nature symptoms tend to be recurrent and can become chronic (> 3 months) if left untreated. As low back pain progresses from acute to chronic...
In the absence of rare spine pathology the only abnormal low back MRI is a normal MRI. After age 30 many of our spines will age and positive findings will become more common in patients with and without back pain. MRIs have tremendous sensitivity and can find even the smallest amount of pathology, but their...
Death, taxes, and low back pain are three of the certainties of life with over 90% of individuals reporting low back pain at some point in their lives. Our previous posts have described the ability of Physical Therapy to both accelerate a patient’s recovery from low back pain and reduce its’ risk of recurrence. A...