Source: Medical News Today
Security & Justice
Southern Lebanon Endures Massive Damage: 40,000 Homes Leveled Across 37 Towns
Israeli forces have systematically destroyed entire neighborhoods in southern Lebanon, leveling more than 37 towns and wiping out over 40,000 residential units, according to Lebanon's National News Agency.
Tuesday, November 5, 2024
Gaps in Coastal Radar Enabled Israeli Raid in Batroun, Army Commander Says
Lebanon’s army chief, General Joseph Aoun, detailed to Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati how Israeli forces likely exploited gaps in the country's coastal radar system during the recent raid carried out in Batroun. The briefing comes as Lebanese officials seek answers on how Israel’s elite Shayetet 13 unit carried out the landing undetected.
Monday, November 4, 2024
Opinion
My Hope for Lebanon
A company of Lebanese soldiers assigned to maintain order in this anxious wartime capital is gathered at its headquarters 100 yards from the Mediterranean. I make the blunder of asking their commander how many of his men are Shiites, Sunnis, Christians and Druze.
Monday, November 4, 2024
The Emptying of Baalbek Is a Moment to Take Stock
“Large numbers of people continue to flee their homes every day, as Israel’s military operations in Lebanon have been going on unabated.” These disturbing words could be from almost any news report about Israel’s invasion of its northern neighbour over the past month. However, they can be found in a report by the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre issued on July 27, 2006.
Saturday, November 2, 2024
Sports
FC Barcelona Fears First Team Star Will Be Banned From Playing, Reports SPORT
FC Barcelona is concerned that one of its main first-team stars will be banned from playing at the turn of 2025 because of issues related to his registration and Financial Fair Play (FFP) limits according to SPORT, which cited anonymous sources.
Friday, November 1, 2024
Tottenham Forward Son Heung-min Crowned Asia’s International Player of the Year
Tottenham forward Son Heung-min was crowned as Asia’s International Player of the Year for the fourth time by the Asian Football Confederation at its annual awards ceremony Tuesday.
Wednesday, October 30, 2024
Sunday 23 June 2024 14:30:42
Walking Can Help People With Lower Back Pain. Here's How
Do you have recurring back pain? A new study suggests that you may be able to “walk it off.”
In their findings Source published in the journal The Lancet, researchers said adults who had a history of lower-back pain who walked regularly went twice as long between recurrences of pain as those who did not take regular walks.
“Walking is a low-cost, widely accessible, and simple exercise that almost anyone can engage in, regardless of geographic location, age, or socio-economic status,” said Mark Hancock, PhD, a senior author of the study and a professor of physiotherapy at Macquarie University in Australia in a statement. “We don’t know exactly why walking is so good for preventing back pain, but it is likely to include the combination of the gentle oscillatory movements, loading and strengthening the spinal structures and muscles, relaxation and stress relief, and release of ‘feel-good’ endorphins.”
“And of course, we also know that walking comes with many other health benefits, including cardiovascular health, bone density, healthy weight, and improved mental health,” added Hancock.
“Walking is, generally speaking, among the most important physical movements we perform in a biomechanical context–possibly on par with breathing,” Dr. Thomas Pontinen, the founder of the Midwest-based MAPS Centers For Pain Control, told Medical News Today. “Our bodies are made to walk and my opinion is the more you walk, the healthier you’ll be. Recent research has reflected this — people who walk more tend to live longer.”
“Walking allows the body to gently activate the core and distribute pressure dynamically and evenly,” added Pontinen, who wasn’t involved in the study. “Muscles that are tighter than they should be will relax a bit while those that are too relaxed will be activated. Additionally, walking helps develop muscles that directly and indirectly support the spine; these muscles span the entire body.”
Details from the study on walking and lower back pain
Hancock and his colleagues studied 701 adults who had recently recovered from an episode of lower back pain.
Participants were assigned to either a walking program and a series of physiotherapist-guided education sessions over six months, or a control group that did not receive either intervention.
“The intervention group had fewer occurrences of activity-limiting pain compared to the control group and a longer average period before they had a recurrence, with a median of 208 days compared to 112 days,” said Hancock.
Natasha Pocovi, PhD, the lead study author and a postdoctoral fellow in Macquarie University’s Department of Health Sciences, added that the individualized intervention tested was also cost-effective.
“It reduced [patients’] need both to seek healthcare support and the amount of time taken off work by approximately half,” she said in the statement.
Lower back pain has many causes
Dr. Sean Barber, a neurosurgeon with the Houston Methodist healthcare system in Texas, told Medical News Today that a wide variety of underlying health problems can cause lower back pain.
“Back pain can arise due to degeneration of the intervertebral discs, degeneration of the joints connecting the spinal vertebrae, instability of the spine, deformity, nerve root compression, and muscular strain/sprain, among others,” said Barber, who was not involved in the study. “For patients who have been recommended to pursue non-surgical treatment for recurrent lower back pain, exercise of some sort, avoidance of smoking, and maintenance of a healthy body weight have been shown to lead to a decreased incidence of future back pain recurrences.”
The researchers plan a follow-up study on integrating preventative intervention into regular patient care. Exercise and education are already considered best practices for back pain management, but some programs include significant barriers to utilization, Pocovi said.
“The exercise-based interventions to prevent back pain that have been explored previously are typically group-based and need close clinical supervision and expensive equipment, so they are much less accessible to the majority of patients,” said Pocovi. “Our study has shown that this effective and accessible means of exercise has the potential to be successfully implemented at a much larger scale than other forms of exercise.”
Barber said the study is important because “nonspecific lower back pain is highly prevalent and the source of considerable socioeconomic burden.”
It doesn’t take much exercise to make a difference
“The patients included in this study had little to no prior experience with regular exercise, and as such likely benefitted from the assistance of a physiotherapist in determining the ‘appropriate starting dose’ and ‘appropriate progression’ of their walking program,” Barber said. “That being said, one does not necessarily need the help of a licensed professional to begin walking or to begin light exercise of any sort.”
Prior studies have also shown that exercise can benefit patients with lower back pain, Barber noted.
“In many cases, it does not appear that particularly high-intensity or lengthy sessions of exercise are required to achieve this benefit, which is evident in the fact that the actual difference in walking volume at three months between the intervention and control groups in this study was only 600 steps – or roughly 1/4 mile – per day,” he said.
For those recovering from episodes of back pain, a walking regimen is an accessible way to ease back into exercise, said Dr. Farhan Malik, an Atlanta-based family medicine and sports medicine physician.
“I recommend starting with short, 10-minute to 15-minute walks and gradually increasing duration as tolerated,” Malik, who wasn’t involved in the study, told Medical News Today. “Proper walking posture is also key: standing tall with a neutral pelvis, relaxed shoulders, and eyes looking ahead. For long-term back pain management, a regular walking routine of 30 to 60 minutes most days of the week can increase endurance, improve mood, and provide lasting relief.”
