Back to self help?

THERE ARE a number of subjects which if raised in conversation can kill it dead, whilst others can generate enthusiasm and interest. Examples of the latter can involve gossip concerning a mutual acquaintance or a ’never failed yet’ slimming diet. Examples of the former can involve other people’s holidays or the symptoms of their ’back problems’. Stories of back-pain are dull, for it is a common complaint, seldom dramatic non-life threatening and not amenable to spectacular medical therapy’. Perhaps it is because of the undeniable ubiquitous character of low back pain that sufferers rarely feel they are given sympathy by friends, relatives or colleagues. Many patients also feel that there is little help from medical practitioners. In support of this Nachemson2 claims that among the world’s two million doctors there are still only two hundred who have attempted to evaluate their back-pain therapies scientifically and only twenty who have devoted their career exclusively to research into back-ache, whilst some seventy to eighty per cent of the world’s population suffer from this disabling affliction at some time in their lives. With little successful care from orthodox