back pain

Controversy Over Spinal Fusion

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Debate over spinal fusion surgery continues to occur. A recent article tiled “Spinal fusions serve as a case study for debate over when certain surgeries are necessary,” appears in the Washington Post written by Peter Whoriskey and Dan Keating and published on October 27, 2013. (Note I have previously mentioned some of the controversy over spinal fusion in the post Tips to Prevent Medical Errors – AHRQ) The article mentions that spinal fusions being performed in the U.S. has risen over the years and that around half of the surgeries they reviewed don’t meet expert consensus on when the surgery should be performed. This article discusses a surgeon at a Florida hospital who was earning well over a million a year performing spinal fusions on patients. Auditors at the hospital began to wonder if all the cases were necessary and … Read more

TV and Computer Viewing Leads to Physical Pain

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A new  study looking at computer monitor and TV screen viewing has findings I don’t find particularly shocking or surprising by any means. Over 30,000 Nordic teenagers were used in a study published in the  journal BMC Public Health. Torbjørn Torsheim, from the University of Bergen, Norway, and his researchers found that TV viewing, computer use and computer gaming (screen time) were consistently associated with recurrent headaches and back pain. Torbjørn Torsheim said, “A rising prevalence of physical complaints such as back pain, neck and shoulder pain, and headache has been reported for adolescent populations. Parallel to this, adolescents are spending an increasing amount of time on screen-based activities, such as TV, computer games, or other types of computer based entertainment.” The study found  little interaction between the type of activity performed while viewing the computer and TV and the … Read more