Low Back Disorders: Evidence-Based Prevention and Rehabilitation

Get the latest information on evidence-based prevention and rehabilitation approaches from an internationally recognized expert; and learn how to apply the principles to low back disorders and low back pain in industry, sport, and everyday settings.

Low Back Disorders: Evidence-Based Prevention and Rehabilitation provides professionals with the foundation to make the best clinical decisions for building the best prevention and rehabilitation programs. The author’s unique research results quantify forces that specific movements and exercises impose on the low back. The text identifies commonly prescribed practices that are, in fact, contraindicated in promoting back health. Additionally, it provides appropriate strategies to offset injuries and restore function. Low Back Disorders will build your understanding of the science behind appropriate practices so that you can use them effectively with clients and patients.

The book presents a clear exposition of back anatomy and biomechanics. It also provides the evidence to dispel myths regarding spine stabilization exercise and various prevention approaches. For example, the quantification of stability will show which muscles are important and which exercises groove motor patterns to ensure spine stability.

With Low Back Disorders, you will gain valuable information on measured loading of the back during specific activities and apply it to avoid common—but counterproductive—practices in back rehab, learn how to analyze patients’ and clients’ unique physical characteristics and lifestyle factors and tailor treatments and preventive measures to their individual needs, and learn how to help patients and clients achieve the low back stability required to prevent future damage and back pain. You'll also acquire the information necessary to prescribe effective exercises clearly and easily.

The text offers practical guidelines for developing optimal exercise regimens and over 40 tests and exercises for diagnosis and prevention of low back pain, carefully selected or developed based on measured biomechanical factors.

Low Back Disorders addresses in detail the ergonomic issues related to manual materials handling and injuries and low back pain associated with seated work and sport, and throughout the book it reinforces their application in functional activities.

Stuart McGill, PhD, is a professor at the University of Waterloo in, Ontario, Canada and an internationally recognized lecturer and expert in spine function and injury prevention and rehabilitation. He has written more than 200 scientific publications that address lumbar function, low back injury mechanisms, investigation of tissue loading during rehabilitation programs, and the formulation of work-related injury avoidance strategies. He has received several awards for his work, including the Volvo Bioengineering Award for Low Back Pain Research from Sweden. Dr. McGill has been an invited lecturer at many universities and delivered more than 200 addresses to societies around the world. As a consultant, he has provided expertise on assessment and reduction of the risk of low back injury to government agencies, corporations, professional athletes and teams, and legal firms. He is one of the few scientists who consults and to whom patients are regularly referred.