Rather than using traditional treatments such as surgery, injections, drugs, stimulators or manipulation, researchers have devised a way to reset the communication between the brain and the back.
Australian researchers who are attempting to introduce a new paradigm for managing chronic low-back pain have achieved some early success.
“It’s the first new treatment of its kind for back pain, that has been tested against a placebo,” says Professor James McAuley from the University of NSW’s School of Health Sciences, and a senior research scientist at Neuroscience Research Australia .Funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council and conducted at NeuRA, the trial involved researchers from around Australia and from the UK and Switzerland.
“Since the trial, I no longer view myself as someone with chronic low-back pain,” she says. “Previously, pain was constantly on my mind. I’d wake with it and immediately think about how best to adapt my activities for the day, to avoid or alleviate it.”“When I understood the brain can become maladaptive, I wondered if this might have happened to me. Was my chronic back pain as bad as I perceived it to be?” she says.
Now, in her early 50s, she’s lifting heavy weights several days a week, and enjoying it. “My days of paracetamol and anti-inflammatories are over.”“The longer people have back pain, the more oversensitive they become to threats,” says McAuley. “Even when there’s no longer anything wrong with their back, their brain continues to try and protect it. Our approach builds on this understanding.it changes how they filter and interpret information from their back and how they move it.
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