Physiotherapists in Manchester treat many different conditions including the issues profiled below.

The Course of Low Back Pain

Low back pain is always described as being either acute, sub acute or chronic with acute pain lasting less than six weeks, sub acute pain from six weeks to twelve weeks and chronic pain lasting over the twelve week point. Most people were assumed to recover quickly and go back to normal with only a small number suffering longer term pain and disability. However, research has shown that it is an episodic and recurring condition and present for much longer than generally thought. 75% of patients with back pain in primary care still had symptoms a year later in one study, indicating back pain is more of a chronic picture overall.

Patients with chronic back pain are not uniformly severe or disabled but rather suffer a varying degree of pain and disability over time. Old views used to be that 80-90 percent of back episodes resolved completed but it is much more realistic to view it as a longer term grumbling problem. The main predictor for people having back pain in the future is having had it in the past and this supports the above idea of back pain as a continuing problem. For most people back pain is a common but limited irritation which recurs from time to time.

Chronic Neck Pain

The risk of long term neck pain and disability has been the subject of much investigation to try and stop this disabling, painful and costly condition developing. The warning signs which indicate a risk of developing this condition are known as yellow flags and are mostly to do with our understanding and emotional state. Physical factors are much less important unless they are very high levels of pain after an injury. Yellow flags include believing that the neck pain is due to serious injury or damage to the neck tissues; avoiding activity or movement due to fear of causing damage; resting excessively; waiting for a cure for the pain instead of working on it themselves; developing depression and becoming withdrawn; not improving over a couple of weeks; believing that hurt equals harm and that disability is likely.

These symptoms and attitudes can sneak up on someone so it is important to work at getting mobile and back to normal as soon as possible after injury or an episode of neck pain. It is useful to analyse how the recovery is going and take steps to fix any of the problems that the patient or an adviser identifies as relevant.