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

Back Pain - Yellow Flags for Disability and Work Loss

Low back pain is one of the most common and disabling musculoskeletal conditions prevalent in the population, causing high degrees of work loss, suffering and expense. Back pain sufferers are affected by a variety of physical and psychological issues which affect the severity, duration and outcome of the back pain episode. The ideas of yellow flags, to add to red flags which are an indication of serious spinal pathology, has been formalised by work in New Zealand under the title of .Yellow Flags . Indicators for Work Loss and Disability.. These psychosocial factors are important and they are much stronger predictors of how well the person is going to turn out with their back pain than any of the physical factors.

Physiotherapists ask yellow flag questions to find out what their patients are thinking and thereby to be able to target their interventions more closely to the presenting problems. Typical yellow flag positive indications might be the belief that activity is harmful, the belief that pain means there is damage going on in the back and the idea that work is harmful. These beliefs are important in holding some people back from going back to doing normal activities.

The Causes of Neck Pain

The neck is a strong structure, being part of the mechanically strong and durable spinal column, formed by the individual vertebrae which are bound together by the disc outer walls and large numbers of ligaments. The neck has some large powerful muscles and some smaller postural ones to maintain itself within safe limits. Disc problems or trapped nerves are uncommon in neck problems and surgery for neck symptoms is much less common than for back problems. As with mechanical low back pain, MRI scans and x-rays are not particularly helpful in normal neck pain and can even be confusing.

MRI scan reports often reveal .degenerative changes. in the discs or joints of the cervical spine, which sounds serious but is present in the necks of many people who do not have neck pain. These changes are time related and do not reflect ongoing damage in the spine. One of the frustrating aspects of neck pain is that the physiotherapist and the doctor are unlikely to be able to put their finger on the exact cause of the pain, but this is very common and not a cause for alarm. Most neck pain is thought to come from the joints, ligaments and muscles in the cervical spine.