Healthy Connections » Daniel Bannard

Injuries on the golf course reduced with exercise and stretching

Daniel Bannard — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 16:17:53 +0000

People who are involved in sports and recreational activities experience numerous injuries in the pursuit of enjoyment. One would think that the physical contact sports would be the ones producing most of these problems and a competitor would remain relatively uninjured in the more individual sports that involve no contact or collision with another person. This, however, is far from the truth especially when considering the more passive sport of golf.

In the United States alone, it is estimated that approximately 27 million people play the game of golf. It is actually quite shocking to look at the number of injuries occurring in the pursuit of this activity. In the United States, there are 13.5 million golf-related injuries reported each year.

Patients who come to chiropractors seeking relief from bodily aches and pains will quite often be suffering from some variety of repetitive strain syndrome. These patients are out on the golf course taking swings at a ball in such a way as to put undo and often extreme strain on muscles, tendons, ligaments, joints and bones. They swing repeatedly over the course of a round of golf that often involves playing 18 holes laid out over a 4 mile track that might involve 40, 50 or more severe rips at the ball.

There are several basic reasons a person causes injury to themselves, and patient education can go a long way toward preventing bodily damage from occurring. Very simply, the average patient does very little, if anything, to prepare or condition their body for the golf swing. Basically, they just play. This will often involve showing up at the course just minutes before their game is scheduled to begin. They walk out onto the first tee (location where the initial shot is struck on each hole) and “give it a go.” Generally, they embark upon this action with little or no stretching to get loose or get the body warmed up to play. Commencing to swing viciously at the ball is just as common for persons who visit the practice range to work on their game by bashing a hundred or more balls. No stretching, no warm-up, no preparation of the body or conditioning of the body for the rigors of the game.

When the forces that are involved in creating a full, hard golf swing are looked at further, it is easy to see how injuries, especially those caused by repeated strain, can occur. The average golfer can actually achieve a swing speed of about 90 miles per hour with a golf club. Professionals are only a bit superior at 115, but the 90 mile per hour swing is enough to require a major effort. It is surprising just how much work is required to swing the club. “Amateur golfers achieve approximately 90 percent of their peak muscular activity when driving a golf ball. This is the same intensity as picking up a weight that can only be lifted 4 times before total fatigue.” This statistic comes from the book The Biomechanics of Golf by Paul Chek.

So, what can golfers learn to do before playing a round of golf to help in injury prevention? The basic recipe for success involves developing a simple set of exercises to warm up and stretch the body before play. It may also be important to do some additional stretching during the round as golf these days can involve long delays caused by slow play or looking for errant balls. Additionally, golfers would be wise to have their bodies checked by a chiropractor to help eliminate source points of injuries which could stem from pre-existing postural instability or poor flexibility.

The key to solving the problem of many of the 13.5 million injuries would at least three-fold.

One, visit a chiropractor to make sure the body is in good postural condition for the rigors of the game.
Next, exercise regularly with an emphasis on stretching and flexibility while off the course or between rounds.
Finally, make sure the body is completely warmed up before play or practice. Don’t just “grip it and rip it.” Arrive early, warm up and only then go out on a beautiful golf course and enjoy a pleasant day that is free of injury.

Premature baby and relieved parents both breath easier after treatment

Daniel Bannard — Fri, 14 May 2010 19:23:20 +0000

When a child enters the world prematurely, there is a good chance that some breathing difficulties might surface. However, when Chiropractic is involved, a premature birth does not necessarily mean that a child is going to have to spend many long months with drug and breathing apparatus intervention.

One such case was recently documented in the Journal of Vertebral Subluxation Research. Here was a case where the child suffered from the condition known as bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), which is a lung condition that can be quite serious and results in breathing problems for the premature baby.

The administration of oxygen is the usual treatment for the newborn child. Treatment is delivered in the hospital’s intensive care unit and is administered continuously for the first 28 days. A 120 day hospital stay is most likely and administration of antibiotics and continued oxygen treatments are required when the child is finally discharged.
In the case under study, the child who was born 24 days prematurely followed this course of treatment after she was diagnosed with BPD. Oxygen was administered, antibiotics were included, and she was nourished with a feeding tube for 3 months. Finally, after 17 weeks she was discharged and oxygen treatments were continued at home.
The girl was brought to a chiropractor for examination some 3 months after her release from the hospital. A Chiropractic exam showed that she weighed in at just 12 pounds now some 7 months after her birth. Her condition was described as listless. She had pasty skin and sinus congestion; her breathing was short and rapid, and there was no eye contact reported. Plus, she was constipated and colicky.
After just one adjustment, the baby’s mother noticed immediate changes. The baby became livelier and was able to use her abdominal muscles to hold her legs up. The colic subsided and she easily passed gas for the first time. The second visit resolved congestion problems and her sinuses began to drain.
After her third adjustment, the baby made some loud noises and started to draw air in more easily. With such positive results, Chiropractic care continued for a period lasting several months. The changes to the child during this period of time were quite remarkable. Daily improvements were noted – such things as more head control, better facial color, regular bowel movements and a much improved breathing ability.
The end result was a healthy child who no longer needed any antibiotics. She never needed to be readmitted to the hospital during or following her Chiropractic treatment. By this time, she was able to roll over easily on her own and no symptoms of her BPD returned. Chalk up another victory for Chiropractic treatment with the result being a child who was well on her way to being able to live a happy and healthy life.
Source: Kid Chiropractic. “Chiropractor Helps Infant with Serious Lung Condition.” March 2008. http://www.kidchiropractic.com/

CHIROPRACTIC HELPS CANCER PATIENTS IMPROVE LIFE, REDUCE NEED FOR DRUGS

Daniel Bannard — Wed, 05 May 2010 18:15:48 +0000

Lifestyle choices have been found to be contributing factors to cancer. Living healthy and the incorporation of exercise in a person’s life are known to reduce the chances of a person getting many forms of cancer. Chiropractors are experts in pro-
viding lifestyle options that encourage healthy, drug-free living that promote longterm well-being.
However, when a person does contract cancer, there is evidence that Chiropractic treatment can be of benefit to a person in living more comfortably and reducing the aches and pains that some experience with this dreaded disease.
Case reports illustrate that Chiropractic can be of help in improving a person’s quality of life as reported in the Journal of Manipulative Physiological Therapeutics. One such report involves a 57-year-old man. He was in the later stages of termi-
nal pancreatic cancer when he visited a chiropractor. While his treatment was not able to save his life at this stage, it was documented that the man’s pain was considerably reduced.
According to the article, “In this case Chiropractic care was able to provide significant pain relief, reduce the amount of pain medication being taken (as well as their potential side effects), and temporarily improve the quality of life for a patient with terminal cancer.”
Another patient, this one a 54-year-old man, was suffering from upper back pain following lung cancer surgery. This painful condition had been going on for over a year with no relief in sight. Quite remarkably, only two visits to a chiropractor brought relief to this individual. Additionally, he was able to discontinue all of his pain medication as well.
According to the article, the principles of Chiropractic applied to these individuals put each patient into a condition where the healing ability of their body was able to again work to its maximum potential. While the person’s pain was not
directly treated, the body was, and this allowed it to go to work to reduce the pain and the need for medication.
“These clinical examples offer two specific instances of how Chiropractic may improve the quality of a cancer patient’s life,” the article stated. Persons suffering from any stage of cancer and dealing with pain as a result of the disease would be
wise to consult a chiropractor to help maximize their body’s healing powers to fight the disease and assist with the discomfort.
Source: Chiropractic Research. “Cancer Patients Quality of Life Improved with Chiropractic.” January 2001.

http://chiropracticresearch.org/NEWS_cancer_patients.htm

Japan’s Medical Error System Based On Criminal, Not Civil Law

Daniel Bannard — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 19:03:24 +0000

When injuries or death due to medical errors occurs in Japan, patients or their family members usually call the police. Contrasted with the civil malpractice litigation common in America, in Japan, arrests and prosecutorial decisions are based on results of criminal investigations. Medical error in Japan is considered a crime against the state.

Japanese prosecutors have several legal weapons in medical cases that are not available to American prosecutors. A standard charge used against medical personnel under the Japanese Criminal Code is “professional negligence causing death and injury,” a crime not found in U.S. statute books.

“In the United States, errant physicians and hospitals fear malpractice lawyers,” says Robert B. Leflar, a Medical Sciences law professor at the University of Arkansas who spent a year in Tokyo studying how people and institutions deal with malpractice. “In Japan, the greater concerns are whistle-blowers, the media and the police. Japanese aggrieved by perceived medical error tend to call the police and try to get a prosecutor involved.”

Unlike the US, Japan does not have a peer review and professional discipline system, or a hospital accreditation process. The absence of these accountability mechanisms means they are not compelled to report medical errors. Leflar found that although some Japanese hospitals in recent years are more frequently voluntarily reporting medical errors, secrecy surrounding medical error remains even more of a problem in Japan than in the US. For that reason, Japan’s criminal code also contains sanctions for attempts to cover up mistakes by altering patients’ charts.

In comparing the two countries, Leflar said a greater convergence of objectives — including compensation, a sincere apology, discovering the truth about what happened and sometimes revenge — between prosecutors and victims in Japan may explain why medical-error victims there appear more likely to seek criminal prosecutions.

“In Japan, the weakness of peer review and professional discipline structures, the lack of mandatory hospital accreditation and the absence of objective, hospital-by-hospital statistics on outcomes of medical treatment — not to mention the relative infrequency of civil malpractice litigation — enhances the social importance of criminal law as a way of increasing transparency in the medical world,” Leflar said.

Japanese officials admit that police and prosecutors are not ideally suited for medical quality control. But the weakness of other structures has forced them into that role. To compensate for this, Japan’s health ministry is running a pilot project in which independent medical specialists investigate medical errors to obtain facts and reach conclusions in a more timely, less expensive and hopefully more accurate and objective fashion than the legal system allows.

“If the Japanese project succeeds,” Leflar said, “American reformers seeking to link patient safety and improvement of our dispute-resolution system may find the Japanese approach instructive.”

Tourist’s experience: healthcare in foreign countries – Germany

Change in drug classification immediatly makes more people sick

Daniel Bannard — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:55:45 +0000

Many people who were considered to be in perfect health in the early 1990s may now very well be called sick, unhealthy or in need of medical treatment based on the standards of the 2000s.
Why? Very simple! The major pharmaceutical companies cleverly influenced changes to the systems by which diseases were classified to make more people appear to have medical difficulties requiring treatment when no problem previously existed. The motive? Sell more drugs to more people.
Do you want to sell more cholesterol lowering drugs? Here’s how you do it. First, get nationally recognized associations to establish a lower healthy number. Next, get doctors to buy into the lowered standard and start writing their prescriptions accordingly. Finally, heavily market the new number to the public, create worry and send them to the doctor. The big pharmaceutical companies continue working to reclassify the levels for more health concerns and soon it’s gravy train time in the boardrooms.
Researchers at Dartmouth Medical School recently found that this was indeed happening. They estimate that during the 1990s, tens of millions more Americans were reclassified as having hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes or obesity simply because the definitions of those diseases were changed. As a result, tens of millions more Americans were reclassified with a serious health problem.
This research points out that currently, due to the expanded diagnosis parameters, as many as three out of four Americans technically have at least one of these commonly medicated diseases. The truth be told, millions of these people are not really sick at all. Dr. John Kitzhaber of The Foundation for Medical Excellence in Portland, who was also Oregon’s governor from 1995 to 2003 stated, “We have a system that nobody but Big Pharma is happy with.”
Every time the boundary of a disease is expanded, such as the hypertension blood-pressure threshold lowered by 10 points or the guideline for obesity lowered by 5 pounds, the market for drugs expands by millions of consumers and billions of dollars. The result is skyrocketing sales of prescription drugs, soaring health-care costs and escalating patient anxiety. Worst of all, millions of people are now taking drugs that may carry a greater risk than the underlying condition. The treatment, in fact, might make them sick or even kill them.
Dr. H. Gilbert Welch is a Dartmouth medical professor and editor of Effective Clinical Practice, a journal of the American College of Physicians. He, too, voiced his concern that more healthy people are being classified as sick only to increase drug sales. “You can’t tell me that three-quarters of my population is sick before I start. That just doesn’t pass the laugh test. Our business is in a hard place right now. A lot of docs know it’s not right.”

Comprehensive neck pain study finds alternative treatments work best

Daniel Bannard — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:40:10 +0000

A recently concluded 7-year study points persons who suffer from the discomforts of neck pain toward alternative therapies and away from medical intervention when seeking help. Researchers named Acupuncture, neck manipulation and massage as the preferred treatments. Improvements through exercise, neck mobilization and continued education were also among recommended interventions.
This long-term study was undertaken by The Bone and Joint Decade 2000-2010 Task Force on Neck Pain and Its Associated Disorders. The organization produced a 236-page review of the current research on neck pain and published its results in the journal Spine.
A multi-national and inter-disciplinary study team included Canadian, American, South American, Australasian and European researchers.

“Neck pain is not a trivial condition for many people,” says Task Force president Dr. Scott Haldeman, clinical professor, Department of Neurology at the University of California, Irvine, and adjunct professor, Department of Epidemiology University of
California Los Angeles. “It can be associated with headaches, arm and upper back pain and depression. Whether it arises from sports injuries, car collisions, workplace issues or stress, it can be incapacitating. Understanding the best way to diagnose and manage this
problem is of high importance for those who are suffering and for those who manage and pay for its care.”
Researchers suggested that people suffering from neck pain should avoid using neck brace devices in an attempt to handle the condition. Also, they failed to find favor with corticosteroid injections and surgery. Treatments with corticosteroid injections and surgery for neck pain relief should only be considered when there is associated extreme pain in the arm or in the case of a fracture or a serious disease. Surgery should be seen only as a last resort for severe and persistent pain.
Which alternative therapy a neck pain sufferer should embark upon was not designated by researchers. They did advise that alternative treatments to manipulate the neck should be considered. Often, relief can be provided through Chiropractic adjustments as well as the intervention offered through Acupuncture and massage.
Researchers cautioned consumer awareness toward anyone that makes a “big claim” to solve neck pain. They also suggested that some relief should be noticed within 2-4 weeks of beginning treatment. If there is little or no relief after this amount of time, another
form of alternative therapy should be considered.

Knowing About Diet Influenses Can Lead To a Healthier Heart

Daniel Bannard — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:26:22 +0000

The health of the heart and the death rate due to heart disease has made an interesting increase over the past 150 years. In the 1800s, death by heart attack was almost unheard of. Now, it has taken the position of the single largest killer of American men and women.

According to statistics provided by the American Heart Association (AHA) in a “2007 Update on Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics,” cardiovascular disease accounted for 36.3% of all deaths in the United States in 2004. The AHA says that some 80 million US adults have cardiovascular disease.

Statistics say that nearly 2,400 people die in the US each day as a result. An interesting evaluation of these statistics over these past 150 years and how the rate of death increases have correlated to changes in food intake and lifestyle was recently presented in a booklet by chiropractor Kurt W. Donsbach, DC. One study pointed out in the materials shows heart failure statistics collected from 1855 to 1985 in the area of Yorkshire, England.

From the years 1855-1900 the death rate from heart failure was only 1 in 22,000 people. From 1900-1925, the figure rose to 5 deaths per 22,000. From 1925-1985, that death figure jumped to 35 per 22,000 people. Understanding some of the changes that occurred during these years and taking a look at lifestyles and food intake today can provide some very enlightening insights into making wellness lifestyle choices.

Two significant changes occurred around 1880:

The introduction of bleached white flour which replaced whole wheat flour in most households who could afford it
Machine-made cigarettes were introduced around this time and were enjoyed by about 80% of the male population.

These two factors likely accounted for the increase in heart failure from 1 to 5 deaths per 22,000.

The next major change occurred after 1925 when American homemakers began replacing lard with oil, and margarine became a substitute for butter. By the 1950s it was standard procedure to use hydrogenated margarine, shortening and liquid oils like corn and canola in place of lard and butter.

Donsbach points out that it was during this period that deaths from heart disease increased most dramatically.

Two additional negative factors affecting the health of our population are the reduction of magnesium and vitamin E in our daily diets, both of which contribute to general heart health.

Magnesium reduction occurs in two ways: One is through the use of bleached white flour and the other is drinking soft water. Hard water generally contains a higher concentration of minerals in general but notably a greater quantity of magnesium. Finally, wheat bread is a reasonably good source of vitamin E, yet bleached white flour is basically stripped of this health-producing vitamin.

Certainly exercise and wellness activities can go a long way to producing a healthy body, but knowing this interesting historical perspective can shed some light on good heart health choices. Wise choices include no smoking, the use of wheat flour, a careful look at oils and margarines and making sure that adequate levels of magnesium and vitamin E are included in the diet. For persons with questions about health and diet, a consultation with an alternative medical practitioner such as a chiropractor or an acupuncturist about a comprehensive healthy lifestyle would be an excellent place to begin.

Common Painkillers Raise Heart Risk

Daniel Bannard — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 16:40:43 +0000

Over-the-counter painkillers including aspirin, ibuprofen and particularly acetaminophen, can raise blood pressure and thus the risk of heart disease among men, according to an article in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
The new research, which covered four years among more than 16,000 healthy men, reinforces an earlier 2002 study that found the same commonly used non-narcotic analgesics raised blood pressure in women.
Men who used analgesics 6 to 7 days per week were compared with nonusers. The study also observed similar results when the number of pills per week was analyzed rather than frequency of use in days per week.
Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDs, which include ibuprofen and naproxen, created a 38 percent greater risk of hypertension (raised blood pressure) among the participants than among men who did not take analgesics.
Those taking similar amounts of acetaminophen, which is sold generically, and as Tylenol TM, were 34 percent more likely to develop hypertension. Similar dosages of aspirin caused a 26 percent greater incidence of raised blood pressure.
More NSAIDs, even more hypertension Men who took 15 or more NSAID pills a week were 48 percent more likely than nonusers to have high blood pressure. The drugs can affect the ability of blood vessels to expand, and may also cause sodium retention –– two factors that can both raise blood
pressure.
Being overweight reduced the risk from acetaminophen, but raised the risk from NSAIDS, the researchers found.
“This is a potentially preventable cause of high blood pressure,” Dr. John Forman of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, who led the study, said in a statement.
Men who are advised by a doctor to take an aspirin a day to reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke should not stop taking them without first discussing the risks and benefits with their doctor.
SOURCE: http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/167/4/394