Back pain: a movement problem

A clinical approach incorporating relevant research and practice”

By Josephine Key

“Back Pain: a movement problem…” is a practical manual to assist all students and clinicians concerned with the evaluation, diagnosis and management of the movement related problems seen in those with spinal pain disorders. It offers an integrative model of posturomovement dysfunction which describes the more commonly observed features and related key patterns of altered control. This serves as a framework, guiding the practitioner’s assessment of the individual patient.

• Examines aspects of motor control and functional movement in the spine, its development, and explores probable reasons why it is altered in people with back pain
• Maps the more common clinical patterns of presentation in those with spinal pain and provides a simple clinical classification system based upon posturo-movement impairments
• Integrates contemporary science with the insights of extensive clinical practice
• Integrates manual and exercise therapy and provides guiding principles for more rational therapeutic interventions:
• which patterns of movement in general need to be encouraged
• which to lessen and how to do so
• Abundantly illustrated to present concepts and to illustrate the difference between so-called normal and dysfunctional presentations
• Written by a practitioner for practitioners

All but one of the reviews at Amazon have been very favorable, rating it 5 out of 5 stars. The only negative review was from a reader who blasted the volume for its poor editing, but then went on to reveal his true objection: he thinks non-medical approaches are — in his words — “alternative therapy mumbo-jumbo.”
In Hardback – and now in Kindle edition.  (Don’t have a Kindle yet? Check out the new Kindle Fire … incredible!)

The Kindle Fire

After recently purchasing a Kindle e-book reader, I’m absolutely addicted to it. I haven’t given up “real” books, but I have more than 100 books on my Kindle right now, and I carry it everywhere.

Kindle books for (by and of interest to!) chiropractors are beginning to come available and I thought it would be helpful to list a few of them here. Don’t forget — you don’t have to own a Kindle to read a Kindle book. You can also download the free Kindle Reader and read them right on your PC.

Don’t yet have a Kindle? Check out my two recommended models:

Kindle Fire, Full Color 7″ Multi-touch Display, Wi-Fi

or …

Kindle Keyboard 3G, Free 3G + Wi-Fi, 6″ E Ink Display – includes Special Offers & Sponsored Screensavers

The Kindle Keyboard version (I suggest getting the one with 3G so you can connect anywhere, even without wi-fi, like your smart phone does.)

And now … for the books:

Let’s start out with the book that’s getting a lot of attention in the media:

The Power of Self-Healing: Unlock Your Natural Healing Potential in 21 Days!
by Fabrizio Mancini, DC

As president of Parker University, Dr. Fabrizio Mancini has built a worldwide reputation as an expert in health and communication. His newly published book is directed to lay people and provides the fundamentals of wellness and self-healing. It explores solutions to restore well-being that don’t involve drugs, surgery, or other medical procedures.

Published by the famed Hay House, and with information compiled from numerous researchers and clinicians, “The Power of Self-Healing; Unlock Your Natural Healing Potential in 21 Days” reflects research discoveries and empirical findings that have emerged to support breakthrough, non-drug, non-invasive self-healing technologies.

Chiropractic Business Plan: How to Start a Low Overhead, High Profit Margin Practice by Dan Perez, DC

Learn how to set up a small but hugely successful, low-overhead and low-stress chiropractic business. This book can benefit established chiropractors, recent chiropractic school graduates, newly licensed chiropractors, and even those considering a chiropractic career. It summarizes the different chiropractic business models available today, the pros and cons of each, and encourages the selection of a low overhead, high productivity model where you keep 80-90% of the revenue you generate. The current economic squeeze is putting many health care providers in a crunch. Author Dan Perez, DC says that the small scale, personalized service model is the best way to overcome tough economic times and teaches you, step by step, how to build one from scratch. Includes a sample floor plan.

Chiropractor’s Guide to Using Groupon for Maximum Profits by Dan Perez, DC

Learn insider strategies on how to properly use Groupon and similar deal of the day sites to bring in loads of patients into your practice. You will learn: how to make simple adjustments to your office to accommodate the surge of business without sacrificing your current patient load; efficiency tools for hands-off scheduling and appointment confirmations; clever ways to weed out the undesirable coupon clippers; strategies for up-selling to maximize your return on investment; and forms to use that will increase your conversions.

How to Advertise Your Chiropractor Business on Facebook and Twitter by Sarah Charten

A simple and easy-to-apply book in which you will discover new ways you can use Facebook and Twitter to improve your sales & boost your profits, in the shortest time possible.

Healthcare Providers: How to Promote Your Practice to a Well-Pay, Self-Pay Clientele by Lyn Kelley Ph.D.

How to promote your practice — for all healthcare providers who want to build their practices with a well-paying clientele: Physicians, Nurses, Chiropractors, Physical Therapists, Massage Therapists, Dentists, Orthodontists, Nutritionists, Cosmetic Surgeons, Estheticians, Holistic Health Practitioners. This is the most valuable and relevant piece of information available for healthcare providers on how to get new, well-paying, cash-paying patients.

You will gain valuable practice growth information by reading this book and making immediate use of the ideas. All of the 40+ ideas in this book are tried-true-tested in many different healthcare markets, and have proven to work — most of them with very little effort and money.

Traditional Chiropractic: A Layperson’s Guide to How it Works & Why it’s Attacked by Dr. John Reiser

Description by author: “In the eyes of certain organizations, chiropractic and its practitioners represent a major threat to the traditional health care model. Many, medically funded, organizations have made it a top priority, throughout the years, to try and silence chiropractic’s voice of common sense in an otherwise insane industry.

I have always maintained that the beauty of chiropractic rests within the profession’s practice objective. The objective is so simple to understand that even a young child could comprehend how it works with the controlling laws of nature.  After reading this book, I am hopeful that your understanding of health care will change. If I am able to help some members of society see a clearer picture of what is really happening in our health care arena, I will have accomplished one of my very personal life goals!”

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I’ll feature more as they come available…

Technique Skills in Chiropractic

by David Byfield, DC

Technique Skills in Chiropractic covers many common diversified adjustive techniques for all regions of the spine and pelvis using a structured skill-based methodology.

The basic skills required in order to carry out manipulative procedures safely and effectively are clearly presented, with photographs supporting descriptions of techniques and online video clips showing how to perform them.

One of the key aspects of this text is the sequential and structured approach to manual skill learning from basic posture to more complex movement patterns to complete the overall manipulative/adjustive procedure.

Dr. Byfield graduated from the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College, Toronto, Canada in 1979 and has since been in private practice and chiropractic education. He is currently a Principal Lecturer, Head of the Chiropractic Division in the Department of Professional Education and Service Delivery, the Faculty of Health, Sport & Science and Head of the Welsh Institute of Chiropractic at the University of Glamorgan.

Order now from Amazon.

Kiso Method: Structural Alignment For Chiropractors

by Craig Zion Cain, DC

These two volumes contain updated information on the Kiso Healing method, which was originally created for chiropractors but has been also adapted to other healing practitioners.

There are two manuals both under the heading of Kiso Method Structural Alignment. Manual one focuses on the lumbar spine, pelvis and thoracic spine, while manual two delves into the cervical spine and cranio-sacral region. They contain information on both non force and force techniques.

According to the author, the Kiso Method “has a very specific form of analysis and adjusting. The concepts are fresh and original. It’s designed to help those patients with disc injuries, with pain in either the sciatic nerve or brachial nerve or for those patients suffering from chronic or acute muscle spasm.”

Although not widely reviewed, two doctors of chiropractic gave the book high marks on Amazon. One stated: “the low back portion of the Kiso Method is so easy to learn and easy to use that I can’t believe all chiropractors in every school in America have not learned this technique. My patients love it and it’s so subtle in the way it feels but powerful in its effect on my patients.”

The other noted: “The Kiso method is very useful to know when treating patients with spinal problems causing neck, shoulder and back pain as well as numbness and tingling of the limbs. … Although gentle, the results are very powerful and in most cases improvement is instantaneous.”

The author is the founder of Kiso Method and a graduate of Palmer West. While an intern at the college in 1987, he discovered the first part of the Kiso Method by accident. While working on a patient using the knee chest table, he discovered that having the patient on their knees and allowing the patient to increase the lordodic curve in the lumbar spine, allowed the lumbar and sacral vertebrae to be adjusted with very light force. It was eight years later after studying bodywork therapies for two years in Japan, that Dr. Cain started to discover the cervical portion of the Kiso Method.

Both manuals were released in Dec. 2011.

Buy on Amazon.com

Low Back Pain: Mechanism, Diagnosis and Treatment

by James M. Cox

To be released this month, the seventh edition of this textbook is built on the peer-reviewed literature and research studies in the diagnosis and treatment of low back and radicular pain, focusing on the nonsurgical chiropractic adjusting methods.

The book contains detailed discussion of the biomechanics of the spine involved in low back pain; the neurophysiology and pathology of the intervertebral disc and neural tissues in pain production, emphasizing compressive and chemical etiology of nerve pain; chiropractic spinal manipulation compared to medical care and surgery of back and radicular pain for clinical outcomes and cost of care; and rehabilitation of the back pain patient and its necessity in clinical management.

New chapters in the seventh edition cover nutritional factors in the treatment of intervertebral disc degeneration and osteopenia and osteoporosis of bone; treatment for back pain in the pregnant female patient with flexion distraction spinal adjustments; updated diagnosis and treatment of fibromyalgia; physiological therapeutics used in general chiropractic clinical practice in spinal care; the history and evolution of Cox flexion distraction chiropractic spinal manipulation; and diagnostic testing from physical examination, diagnostic imaging, laboratory testing, and their combined input to correct diagnosis of the back pain patient.

Order now from Amazon

Enzymes: The Key to Health

by Howard F. Loomis, DC

Already familiar to readers of The Chiropractic Journal and other chiropractic publications, author Howard F. Loomis, DC, demonstrates his impressive expertise in the fields of nutrition and enzyme deficiency with this volume.

The book explores the basic principles of enzymes, focusing on their nature and clinical applications. Opening with an introduction suitable both for practitioners and lay readers, Loomis explains the role of enzymes and the use of plant enzymes as a vital dietary component.

Of particular importance to DCs and other wellness practitioners are his chapters on the consequences of poor digestion and the role of plant enzyme formulations in addressing a wide variety of health issues. His emphasis on nutrition rather than drugs makes the book especially valuable for chiropractic patients. “A global trend is in the making that is propelling millions of people away from traditional allopathic solutions and toward wellness and holism,” he states in the book.

The book has won high praise from chiropractic and medical practitioners, nutritionists, and lay readers, earning 4.7 out of 5 stars on Amazon.com. “Dr. Loomis … unravels the mysteries of the ‘lost chords’ of healing,” stated Brice E. Vickery, DC.

Arthur David, Jr., MD, notes in the book’s foreword: “Dr. Loomis has provided me with an entirely new grasp of the subject. Not only does he share information that markedly enhances one’s understanding of biochemistry, but he provides the interested clinician with a wonderful therapeutic tool to significantly enhance his clinical efficacy… Dr. Loomis has done a wonderful job of organizing (the information), presenting it in a clear and understandable manner, and making it clinically applicable.”

Order now, new or used, from Amazon

Basic Clinical Massage Therapy

by James H. Clay and David M. Pounds

Rated 4.7 out of 5 stars, there’s little direct information on chiropractic in this volume, but it’s popular among chiropractors who incorporate massage therapy into their practices.In fact, it’s one of the three books that rank highest in the Alternative Medicine – Chiropractic category on Amazon.com.

The second edition of this book (full title: “Basic Clinical Massage Therapy: Integrating Anatomy and Treatment”) is part of the LWW Massage Therapy and Bodywork Educational Series and was published in 2008 by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

The text familiarizes students with individual muscles and muscle systems and demonstrates basic clinical massage therapy techniques. More than 550 full-color illustrations of internal structures are embedded into photographs of live models to show each muscle or muscle group, surrounding structures, surface landmarks, and the therapist’s hands.

Readers see clearly which muscle is being worked, where it is, where it’s attached, how it can be accessed manually, what problems it can cause, and how treatment techniques are performed. This edition features improved illustrations of draping and includes palpation for each muscle.

An accompanying Real Bodywork DVD includes video demonstrations of massage techniques from the book.