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What can you trust online?

back pain advice back pain information Sep 17, 2020
finding back pain information online

An interesting piece of research about the information that back pain advice patients go looking for online was published recently. 

It’s understandable in this modern day that people look online for information and advice when they’re in pain. They want to know what’s going on, what they can do to help, and if there are any causes for concern.

Back pain, however, is a chaotic battlefield, and there are many conflicting pieces of advice online. So while you might get reliable information on how to change the wipers on your car, or learn how to make unicorns from toilet rolls, you might find it harder to get solid information that will help with back pain. 

Here’s what recently became apparent. 

A team of qualified physiotherapists were asked by their governing body to look at the most popular online videos about back pain. The findings were shocking. Within a set of videos that had MILLIONS of views, they found the following:

43% contained a myth and 60% contained false/misleading information

That’s a huge amount of bad information, and quite simply, it could be causing more harm to those who are watching. It equates to millions of people being told rubbish about their back pain, both the causes of it and what to do about it.  This includes madness such as telling people that garlic oil will fix their back pain. Sadly, people who are suffering and looking for help are probably believing it.

If someone told you to replace your windscreen wipers using a banana you’d probably click on the next video, but when people claim to be helping with pain and disability, their viewers are vulnerable and deserve better.

42% contained unhelpful language that was fear evoking or contradictory and 45% did not state their qualifications for providing advice

Anyone who works to help people with back pain knows that they have to be incredibly careful about how they explain things to patients. Back pain patients are typically fearful of prolonged pain and disability, so these fears need to be tackled and soothed professionally with education and reassurance. 

Patient fears must not be multiplied through careless talk of crumbling spines and long-term disability. Anyone doing so is unethically trying to build themselves up as the salvation to a patient’s disability, when in fact, patients need to be empowered to help themselves.

It’s this sort of behaviour that led to the term “snake oil”. 

It’s also a concern that these videos, viewed by millions, were put together by people with no stated qualification. Perhaps this is indicative of today’s culture? How can these people get so many views if they’re not adequately qualified? In other corners of the internet, you can find high-quality education and advice, delivered by experts in their fields, but these don’t have the celebrity gloss and the followers.

32% had an unrealistic video demo

We’ve all seen headlines such as “Do this exercise to banish back pain FOREVER!”. 

Really? For everyone?

For one thing, just because some strapping lad in a vest can bash out 25 repetitions in front of the camera without breaking a sweat, it does not mean that your mother, who might have recently hurt her back gardening, can even get into the starting position. And if you’re struck by a movement-hindering injury, why would you want to copy some scantily-clad fitness model doing something in exactly the position that hurts you?

What if the exercises in these videos cause more pain? Whose fault is that? When asked, 66% of physiotherapists said they had treated people whose injury had been made worse by following poor online guidance.

Perhaps we should tailor our exercises to fit the patient and the injury? It’s not rocket science.

If we thought that back pain was as simple to fix as these people claim, don’t you think we would have fixed it by now?

The moral of the story here is to be careful of what you read, what you see, and what you hear. 

______

You can read about the study here.

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