5 Hidden Benefits of a Good Massage
Aside from the fact that a good massage makes you feel better, what are some of the other benefits to this practice? As a longtime advocate for massage, I decided to delve into its not-as-well-known aspects to see what else it offers beside a well-spent hour on the table. What I discovered are the following five hidden benefits of a good massage.
Massage loosens muscles
Being in physical therapy for a recent low back pain episode means I’m working muscles that have not seen regular activity for some time. That results in soreness that proves I’m doing things right, but it’s also a little uncomfortable.While the ther...
Source: World of Psychology - September 11, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Suzanne Kane Tags: General Health-related Personal Treatment back pain Immune System Low back pain Lymph Lymph node Lymphatic system Massage Physical Therapy shiatsu Source Type: blogs
Assault and battery for money
NYT ' s Gina Kolatatells you what all of us health services researchers already know far too well. Surgical procedures don ' t have to be approved by the FDA or anybody else, and even when they are proven to be useless, surgeons keep doing them. She leads with the most notorious example, spinal fusion.In fact this goes way back. In the 1990s, what was then called the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research concluded that there was no evidence that spinal fusion was beneficial to patients. So, the spinal surgeons societypersuaded the Republican congress to eliminate the agency entirely. Quoth:AHCPR was also co...
Source: Stayin' Alive - August 4, 2016 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
What ’s In A Word? The Evolution Of Effectiveness In Health Care
Discussions around value-based payment almost always involve paying for care that is necessary or appropriate, so a common understanding of those terms is needed to have a productive dialogue about what value means.
Given the number of lives—and resources—at stake, coming to a common understanding of value-based care requires our immediate attention. But to do that work, we need to understand what constitutes value, to whom, and under what circumstances. A healthy debate can begin by bringing together diverse stakeholders and by understanding that as with beauty, effectiveness lies in the eye of the beholder.
...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - July 26, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Murray Ross Tags: Costs and Spending Featured Health Professionals Hospitals Insurance and Coverage Organization and Delivery Population Health Public Health Quality ACOs Alternative Payment Models Choosing Wisely value based care Source Type: blogs
INTRACEPT Nerve Ablation System for Lower Back Pain
Relievant Medsystems obtained FDA clearance for its INTRACEPT intraosseous nerve ablation system. It’s a minimally invasive device that’s used to kill the basivertebral nerve responsible for generating regular pain signals in people with damaged vertebra in the lower back.
The technology is indicated for treating one or more levels between L3 and S1 in people that have not responded to more common treatments for over six months. Being a minimally invasive procedure, the tip of the device is delivered through a bore hole into the vertebral body of the spine where it is then used to beam RF energy, ablating th...
Source: Medgadget - July 22, 2016 Category: Medical Equipment Authors: Editors Tags: Neurosurgery Orthopedic Surgery Pain Source Type: blogs
Openings: Part 1
What are the worst Chief Complaints you’ve ever heard?
For the non-medical reader, the Chief Complaint can be thought of as the patient’s opening statement. It’s what shows up on the schedule as the only thing I know about why the patient is there. I’ve compiled a brief and definitely non-exclusive list of the worst chief complaints I’ve ever seen; the ones that make me sigh in advance, knowing that taking the history is going to be like pulling teeth and that the patient is probably not going to be satisfied.
Here goes:
“Nerves”
“Fatigue”
“Depression”
R...
Source: Musings of a Dinosaur - July 11, 2016 Category: Primary Care Authors: notdeaddinosaur Tags: Medical Source Type: blogs
Ambiguity and uncertainty
Humans vary in how comfortable we are with uncertainty or ambiguity: Tolerance of ambiguity is a construct discussed in cognitive and experimental research literature, and refers to the willingness to prefer black and white situations, where “there is an aversive reaction to ambiguous situations because the lack of information makes it difficult to assess risk and correctly make a decision. These situations are perceived as a threat and source of discomfort. Reactions to the perceived threat are stress, avoidance, delay, suppression, or denial” (Furnham & Marks, 2013, p. 718). Tolerance to uncertainty is ...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - July 10, 2016 Category: Anesthesiology Authors: adiemusfree Tags: Assessment Clinical reasoning Coping strategies Pain Pain conditions Professional topics acceptance ambiguity healthcare pain management Research Therapeutic approaches treatment uncertainty Source Type: blogs
MKSAP: 52-year-old man is evaluated for low back pain
A 52-year-old man is evaluated for low back pain of 3 months’ duration that is nonradiating, progressive, and worse with ambulation. He reports no preceding injury. Medical history is notable for smoldering multiple myeloma diagnosed 1 year ago; he has been stable since that time. His only medication is as-needed acetaminophen.
On physical examination, temperature is 36.8 °C (98.2 °F), blood pressure is 132/82 mm Hg, pulse rate is 70/min, and respiration rate is 14/min. No focal neurologic findings are noted. He has pain to palpation of the lower lumbar spine. The remainder of the examination is unremarkable.
Labor...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - July 9, 2016 Category: Journals (General) Authors: mksap Tags: Conditions Radiology Source Type: blogs
The positive power of what we say during treatment
Expectations form one of the important predictors of response to treatment, especially in the case of treatments for pain. A person’s belief or expectation that a treatment will reduce their pain is thought to be part of the response to placebo – and indeed, part of the response to almost any treatment. Much of the research into expectancies has been carried out in experimental models where healthy people are given a painful stimulus, then provided with some sort of treatment along with a verbal (or written) instruction that is thought to generate a positive belief in the effectiveness of that treatment. The ...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - June 12, 2016 Category: Anesthesiology Authors: adiemusfree Tags: Coping strategies Pain Research Science in practice acute pain Chronic pain conditioning expectations mental imagery placebo procedures treatment verbal instruction Source Type: blogs
The Quality of Virtual Visits
By JOE KVEDAR, MD
Virtual visits are increasingly the rage amongst forward-thinking healthcare providers that want to jump on the telehealth band wagon. Extending the office visit across distance, using the same technology we use to keep in touch with loved ones (videoconferencing such as Skype and FaceTime), is a safe and logical way for providers to venture into a new tech-enabled world that may still be scary for some.
One way to think of this trend is to consider virtual visits an extension of the brick and mortar care model made famous a decade ago by companies like Minute Clinic. Offer convenient access to a care...
Source: The Health Care Blog - May 17, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: Uncategorized Kvedar Quality measurement Virtual Visits Source Type: blogs
How do help someone change their beliefs about pain?
This post is my little attempt to educate clinicians! Some of you will know I really don’t like the term “pain education” or “educating” people. The reason doesn’t go back as far as the original definition of “educate” which is, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary “educate (v.) mid-15c., “bring up (children), to train,” from Latin educatus, past participle of educare “bring up, rear, educate” (source also of Italian educare, Spanish educar, French éduquer), which is a frequentative of or otherwise related to educere “bring out, le...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - May 10, 2016 Category: Anesthesiology Authors: adiemusfree Tags: Chronic pain Clinical reasoning Coping strategies Professional topics biopsychosocial healthcare pain management Therapeutic approaches Source Type: blogs
Mindfulness Effective for Chronic Low Back Pain in Clinical Trial | Pain Research Forum
Government officials, physicians, and the public are increasingly aware of a need to move away from using opiate drugs to treat chronic pain. More and more, doctors are searching for ways to help patients manage pain with non-pharmacological interventions. In line with this trend, new findings now support the use of mindfulness to treat chronic low back pain.
In a clinical trial published March 22 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), subjects who underwent mindfulness training for eight weeks were more likely to report improvements in pain, lasting up to a year, compared to people who received whatev...
Source: Psychology of Pain - May 2, 2016 Category: Anesthesiology Source Type: blogs
Why does “doing exercise” work?
Bless all the physiotherapists in the world, they keep us doing exercises. And exercises are good because they get us doing the things we want to do in our daily lives. But how does it work? This is not an exposition on exercise physiology – I’m not au fait enough with physiology to do that and there are many other people out there with vast amounts of knowledge giving us the benefit of their wisdom who have written at length about exercise and why it’s important. Instead I want to talk about some observations – and maybe pose some critical questions too.
For many years I’ve worked in a chro...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - May 1, 2016 Category: Anesthesiology Authors: adiemusfree Tags: 'Pacing' or Quota Assessment Chronic pain Clinical reasoning Coping Skills Coping strategies Low back pain Occupational therapy Pain conditions Physiotherapy Psychology Science in practice pain management Research Source Type: blogs
Why does “ doing exercise ” work?
Bless all the physiotherapists in the world, they keep us doing exercises. And exercises are good because they get us doing the things we want to do in our daily lives. But how does it work? This is not an exposition on exercise physiology – I’m not au fait enough with physiology to do that and there are many other people out there with vast amounts of knowledge giving us the benefit of their wisdom who have written at length about exercise and why it’s important. Instead I want to talk about some observations – and maybe pose some critical questions too.
For many years I’ve worked in a chro...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - May 1, 2016 Category: Anesthesiology Authors: adiemusfree Tags: 'Pacing' or Quota Assessment Chronic pain Clinical reasoning Coping Skills Coping strategies Low back pain Occupational therapy Pain conditions Physiotherapy Psychology Science in practice pain management Research Source Type: blogs
Self-managing chronic pain
I have long been a proponent of helping people who live with pain to take control of their situation and actively self-manage as much as possible. My rationale has been that people who feel they are in control of some parts of their life are more likely to feel confident when their pain flares up, or when they have a life set-back. Today I took a second look at some of the papers on self-management published over the past few years, and I think it’s time to be a little critical.
The first issue to deal with is defining self-management. To me, self-management means knowing as much as possible about the health conditio...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - April 24, 2016 Category: Anesthesiology Authors: adiemusfree Tags: Chronic pain Coping Skills Coping strategies Research disability Health pain management self management Source Type: blogs
Milestones On The Path To Population Health
Use of the term “population health” has surged in recent years. Much of this enthusiasm has been driven by the idea that health reform would restructure incentives and unite the priorities of health care and public health. In practice, however, population health is often invoked by various stakeholders using different definitions: in health care, it usually refers to managing the health and cost outcomes of a defined patient population attributed to a health care system. Meanwhile, in public health, population health encompasses the aggregate health status of all people in a given geographic area.
Divergent definitions...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - April 11, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Dave Chokshi and Nicholas Stine Tags: Equity and Disparities Featured Population Health Public Health Quality chronic conditions culture of health Diabetes hypertension New York City New York City Health Hospitals Social Determinants of Health Source Type: blogs
