Description
Book SynopsisOver the past twenty years, treatment of back pain has become ever more expensive and intensive. Use of MRI scans, narcotic painkillers, injections, and invasive spine surgery have all grown by several hundred percent. In some areas of medicine, newer treatments have improved quality and duration of life, but as back pain is treated more aggressively, annual surveys of people with back pain report steadily worse impairments. In Watch Your Back!, Richard A. Deyo, MD, proposes an approach to managing back pain, which most adults in the United States experience at some point, that empowers the individual and leads more directly to effective care.
Though it may seem counterintuitive, fewer medical interventions may produce better results. Expecting a probe, a pill, or a procedure to cure back pain is usually unrealistic, yet entire industries promote the notion that someone else will fix you. Watch Your Back! exposes these flaws in the current approach to back pain,
Trade Review
[Starred Review] Deyo (Oregon Health and Science Univ.Hope or Hype) methodically looks at the most frequently used methods of diagnosis and treatment and finds the evidence often lacking, negative, or distorted. With no stake in any particular treatment, the author cites numerous research studies, quotes experts he has interviewed, and provides anecdotes about sufferers, including President John F. Kennedy and Chair of Medicine at Harvard Medical School Jerome Groopman. The author's consistent message is that there is no magic bullet, that more isn't always better, and that patients should be informed partners in any decision. VERDICT Concise, clearly written, and evidence based, Deyo's work would be invaluable to those facing the onset of back pain and the dizzying range of treatment choices, as well as to practitioners and policy makers.
* Library Journal *
Table of Contents1. Back Pain Nation
2. Even the Best and Brightest
3. What's Wrong? What’s Not? Can We Tell the Difference?
4. Painkillers: Easy Solutions Sometimes Aren’t
5. Painkillers and the Marketing of Pain
6. Pain Management, Now That’s Money
7. Stabbed in the Back
8. Surgical Gadgets and the Explosion of Fusion Surgery
9. The Pointed Search for Relief: Injections, Ablations, and Blocks, Oh My!
10. Why Would You Get Better after Useless Therapy?
11. Manipulating the Pain: Chiropractic and Other "Alternative" Treatments
12. Nobody Takes It Seriously!
13. Boot Camp
14. Amplifying Your Voice
15. Some Policy ImplicationsNotes
Index
