Complex spinal injuries require personalized rehabilitation approach
Martin Kumm – sports chiropractor (UK)* and lower back rehabilitation specialist
Having worked for years with patients suffering from back pain, ranging from office workers to high-level athletes, I started noticing two controversial facts: People with seemingly uncomplicated injuries kept coming back, whereas, people with more complex injuries continued getting better.
Not long after, the pattern became evident. Patients with uncomplicated injuries were interested in quick fixes because their injuries hadn’t yet developed into life-altering problems.
On the other hand, people with more complex injuries were personally motivated to take the holistic approach, as their back pain was already stopping them from living their life to its full extent.
Systematic development of the treatment method led me to an understanding that every client’s story is different, and therefore, needs a personalized and holistic approach where all factors that might influence back pain are thoroughly analyzed.
That’s how the HumanRx approach was born. HumanRx combines a thorough back pain analysis called The Master Assessment and a subsequent rehabilitation period that is based on the specific findings of The Master Assessment.
The Master Assessment is the most comprehensive lower back assessment you will ever take. It usually takes 3 to 4 hours to analyze a patient with the sole purpose of finding the root cause of the lower back pain. In comparison, an average of only 5 to 30 minutes is spent on a patient during a regular doctor’s appointment, out of which only 34% is actually spent dealing with a patient, and the remaining 66% is spent on administrative duties.
As part of The Master Assessment, each patient and their individual spinal injury will be analyzed using five different blocks that, when added on top of each other, form a Performance Column:
Biomechanics
Imagine lifting a two year-old toddler off the floor or sitting for six hours in an office chair. Doing these activities once or twice will likely have very little consequence to your lower back, but repeating these activities hundreds or thousands of times will cause your back pain to flare up. To read more about how your daily movement habits could be connected to your lower back pain, click here.
Athleticism
Imagine a fishing rod. By pressing down on it, the fishing rod will bend, right? According to research, a human spine without muscles supporting it and acting as a guy-wire system would buckle under just a 6 kg load! For example, a human head weighs about 5 kg. Hence, the tonicity of your muscular system becomes very important, together with spine-saving movement patterns. To read more about how daily activities can affect your back pain, click here.
Nutrition
Have you ever heard about anti-inflammatory and pro-inflammatory foods? Put simply, anti-inflammatory foods will aid the healing process to build and repair your muscles, bones, joints, and nervous system. Whereas, pro-inflammatory foods will increase the hypersensitivity of your nervous system, and thus, increase lower back pain. Read more here about which foods can act as catalysts for your lower back pain.
General Health
First and foremost, it is extremely important to eliminate all the red flag conditions that could be manifesting as lower back pain, such as hereditary, auto-immune, or chronic conditions. Second, imagine you are only taking 3,000-4,000 steps per day. Reduced daily activity levels will have an impact on your cardiovascular system, and in turn, will have consequences on your lower back pain. Read here about how general health can affect your lower back pain.
Sleep
Have you ever considered why your back pain is more likely to flare up during stressful periods in your life? How was your sleep during these times? Less hours? More awakening? Less rested in the morning? A healthy sleeping schedule is directly related to back pain. It is during sleep that micro injuries from daily activities have a chance to heal. Furthermore, a bad sleeping routine acts as a domino effect for the human brain and neuro-muscular system alike. Read more here about how important developing a healthy sleep schedule is when dealing with back pain.