Australian Chiropractic Association (ACA) is launching a Workspace awareness campaign this week during 22-28 August. Working from home has been a hot topic since the covid-19 pandemic. Workspaces are getting more hybrid and mobile. It is important for all of us to know how-to and what is needed to set up an ergonomically sound workstation. ACA has created a checklist that offers simple and effective techniques to help set up your perfect workspace!​

1. Use an adjustable ergonomic office chair that allows your knees to be slightly lower than your hips.
A good office chair allows you to adjust its height, have your elbow in line with your table and provide lumbar support. It encourages good posture and promotes inward lumbar curve.

2. Sit with an upright posture, with shoulders relaxed and feet flat on the floor.
This is a vital element to avoid muscle fatigue and putting ligaments under unnecessary stress. A footrest could be useful if your feet can’t touch the floor.

3. Make sure your screen(s) height is at eye level and not too far from your position.
This tip is to protect unnecessary strain to your neck. The more you flex your head forward, the heavier the loading to your cervical spine.

4. Consider investing in a sit-stand desk to reduce spinal strain.
Standing up not only reduces sedentary behaviour, but also increases metabolic function, lowers blood pressure and provides lower back pain relief. (Fun fact: Standing desk have been shown to improve productivity and mental focus!)

Having a sit-stand desk provides you the options to change your working posture throughout the day. Alternatively, modifying your workstation by elevating your screen will cost you minimal money! There are some modular types of desktop unit that sit on top of one’s desk available in the market.

5. Take regular postural breaks every 30 mins
Sitting for prolonged period of time can negatively affect your spinal health. It is suggested to make regular mini breaks every 30 mins to keep your body moving throughout your workday. This allows you to reset, recharge and refresh! A simple 3-minute exercise can help reduce musculoskeletal discomfort caused by prolonged sitting. Just download the ACA Straighten Up App from your AppStore and start exercising!

The final tip is to chat with one of our chiropractors in Sprouting Health when you’re unsure about optimising your workspace. We’d love to see more healthy spines and less pain for everyone!

Source: Australian Chiropractic Association

Low back pain is one of the leading cause of disability globally (1) and with all our lifestyle stresses including sedentary work/activities, the situation does not appear to be improving. Do you or a loved one experience low back pain? This is an important article that can make the world of difference to you.
 
“About 4 million Australians (16% of population) have back problems, based on data from the National Health Survey, by the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2017-18”
 
Despite clinical practice guidelines discouraging the use of Benzodiaepine for low back pain, due to insufficient evidence supporting it’s efficacy, and the risk for serious adverse events, it is still being increasingly prescribed (2-4). More conservative approaches with non-pharmacological therapies are recommended as a first approach in line with current evidence based clinical guidelines (5), which includes chiropractic for low back pain.
 
In recent research literature, they looked at 18,412 patient records retrospectively with radicular low back pain, which is low back pain with nerve root involvement. They compared patients who have had chiropractic adjustment for their radicular low back pain (9,206 patients) and patients who didn’t (9,206 patients) in regards to receiving benzodiazepine prescription during follow up. It was found that patients who received chiropractic adjustment for radicular low back pain is associated with reduced odds of receiving a benzodiazepine prescription during follow up (6). Though more data would be beneficial to further substantiate these findings, these preliminary results suggest that chiropractic adjustments would be helpful as a conservative option for radicular low back pain management.
 
So if you want to find out if chiropractic care may help manage low back pain for you or your loved ones, have a chat with one of our chiropractors to see how they can assist.
 
“It’s better to get onto a problem earlier than allowing it to progress and become more complicated to deal with”
 
 
 
 
1.Vos T, Barber RM, Bell B, Bertozzi-Villa A, Biryukov S, Bolliger I, Charlson F. Global, regional, and national incidence, prevalence, and years lived with disability for 301 acute and chronic diseases and injuries in 188 countries, 1990–2013: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013. Lancet. 2015;9995:743-800.
2. Qaseem A, Wilt TJ, McLean RM, et al. Noninvasive treatments for acute, subacute, and chronic low back pain: a clinical practice guideline from the American College of physicians. Ann Intern Med 2017;166:514–30.
3.Brandt J, Leong C, Benzodiazepines LC. Benzodiazepines and Z- Drugs: an updated review of major adverse outcomes reported on in epidemiologic research. Drugs R D 2017;17:493–507.
4.Pangarkar SS, Kang DG, Sandbrink F, et al. VA/DoD clinical practice guideline: diagnosis and treatment of low back pain. J Gen Intern Med 2019;34:2620–9.
5. Qaseem A, Wilt TJ, McLean RM, Forciea MA. Noninvasive treatments for acute, subacute, and chronic low back pain: a clinical practice guideline from the American College of Physicians. Ann Intern Med. 2017;166:514–30.
6. Trager, R.J., Cupler, Z.A., DeLano, K.J., Perez, J.A. and Dusek, J.A., 2022. Association between chiropractic spinal manipulative therapy and benzodiazepine prescription in patients with radicular low back pain: a retrospective cohort study using real-world data from the USA. BMJ open, 12(6), p.e058769.

We get a lot of people visiting our practice with Shoulder Pain.

When you have Shoulder pain you feel irritated and frustrated, it is hard to move and pick things up, let alone exercise. It becomes hard to think clearly and to truly enjoy life when your activities are limited.. Yoga, golf, simply picking up a shopping bag or hugging your child becomes difficult!! Recent research has demonstrated the most problematic areas are placing objects on a high shelf, washing one's back and carrying heavy objects (1).

Your shoulder joints move every time you move your arms. These bones are held together by muscles, tendons, and ligaments. The shoulder joint has the greatest range of motion of any joint in the body. Because of this mobility, the shoulder is more likely to be injured or cause problems. The acromioclavicular (AC) joint, which lies over the top of the shoulder, is also easily injured.

​There are many different types of Shoulder Issues and most are diagnosed by history and presenting factors. ​There are lots of reasons why you might have shoulder pain, there are also many different symptoms with shoulder pain. Here at Sprouting Health we will help identify why you have the pain, then we will develop a game plan specific to you, to help you manage your recovery. We isolate the major muscles and do very specific strength testing on these muscles to ascertain where the problem is. Where your pain is also tells us a lot about what is going on. We also do stability tests and range of motion testing to work out if the shoulder problem is stemming from somewhere else (eg the neck). We then go about balancing the joints that support the shoulder and the shoulder joint itself.
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If you or you know anyone with shoulder pain, feel free to call us with any questions or to book an appointment!
 
References

1. Ostor, A.J.K., Richards, C.A., Prevost, A.T., Speed, C.A. and Hazleman, B.L., 2005. Diagnosis and relation to general health of shoulder disorders presenting to primary care. Rheumatology, 44(6), pp.800-805.