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Rosenberg Wellness Center Helps Back Pain Sufferers Fight Fear Avoidance and Move More

July 20, 2022

Fear of back pain? Once you’ve had it, you answer “yes!” Your New York City chiropractor totally understands it. New York City back pain and neck pain patients do not want to feel that pain again. Rosenberg Wellness Center helps spine pain sufferers regain their confidence with encouragement and exercise

FEAR AVOIDANCE DUE TO BACK PAIN

Back pain sufferers don't want to revisit back pain if they can help it. That desire - whether obvious or subtle, stated or just ruminated in the mind – establishes the situation for a behavior known as fear-avoidance. Patients with persistent spinal pain syndrome - post-surgically caused or not – elicited high levels of fear avoidance, anxiety, and depression. (1) Researchers explained that the pain experience is not just physical as emotions, behaviors and beliefs are mixed in, too. Fear avoidant behavior like fearing the act of lifting an object grows and impacts muscle behavior without realizing it. A recent study compared fear-avoidant beliefs and the lumbar spine paraspinal muscle activity use while lifting in both back pain and in pain-free volunteers. Fear of lifting an object with a flexed spine as described in a questionnaire was negatively associated with erector spinae activity to protect the spine from injury. The proper way to lift has been debated through the years. Lifting with a straight back has been described as safer than lifting with a flexed back though research hasn't necessarily supported that while lifting with a lordotic posture has been reported to result in more erector spinae muscle activity resulting in muscle fatigue and pain.  (2) Rosenberg Wellness Center knows the significance of handling fear avoidance and its link to better quality of life.

HOW TO MANAGE FEAR AVOIDANCE

Researchers wrote that back pain sufferers today ‘get’ that they must keep moving but some require a little more support and encouragement to move and exercise because of a lack of confidence in their bodies’ ability to exercise without triggering pain. The healthcare provider not only can offer the latest findings on pain control but also train the back pain patient to be physical in the safest way possible. (3) If you’re that patient, Rosenberg Wellness Center is your coach! We’re a team and can help you move easier and with less fear and provide gentle, relieving spinal manipulation. Three months of chiropractic manipulation along with exercise for older adults with chronic back pain improved their self-efficacy and fear-avoidant behaviors together with decreases in disability. A 30% or more drop in the Oswestry Disability Index indicated positive response to care. (4) The more engaged a patient is with treatment, the greater the influence on the feeling of self-efficacy and disability reduction. (5) Let us work together to manage your New York City back pain so it does not control you. 

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Listen to this PODCAST with Dr. Tom Menendez on The Back Doctors Podcast with Dr. Michael Johnson as he describes the relief with The Cox® Technic System of Spinal Pain Management for an older patient with back pain for whom fear avoidance is understandable.

Make your New York City chiropractic appointment now so that if you are questioned whether you fear back pain, you can say “no”!

 Rosenberg Wellness Center gets why back pain sufferers fear movement and helps them get past it to move and exercise.