Posts by: Patrick van Dun

Gastrointestinal (GI) endoscopy provides a novel means of correlating visceral abnormalities with somatic dysfunction. The objective of this study was to assess the correlation of palpatory findings of somatic dysfunction with GI abnormalities determined by endoscopy and to identify which types of somatic dysfunction were most commonly correlated with GI abnormalities … ABSTRACT

Postoperative complications are a major concern after gastrointestinal surgery. Resolving movement restrictions such as postoperative paralysis, osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) may be beneficial. The OMANT pilot study was the first prospective trial to investigate the feasibility, safety and potential benefits of OMT after gastrointestinal surgery. Twenty patients with elective bowel resection were randomised in two parallel groups. Patients in the intervention group received standard care with the addition of OMT on postoperative days 1–5 … ABSTRACT

Emotional awareness and somatic interoceptive awareness are essential processes for human psychosomatic health. A typical trait of lacking emotional awareness related to psychosomatic symptoms is alexithymia. In contrast, alexisomia refers to the trait of lacking somatic awareness. Links between emotional and somatic awareness and homeostatic processing are also significant for the psychosomatic health. The purpose of the present paper is to review the links among emotional awareness, somatic interoceptive awareness and autonomic homeostatic processing. On the basis of the collected evidence, the following arguments were presented1: (1) The main subcortical neural substrates for these processes are limbic-related systems, which are also responsible for autonomic functions for optimization of homeostatic efficiency. (2) Considerable studies have shown that autonomic activity and/or reactivity to stress correlate with both emotional and interoceptive awareness. A hypothesis was advocated about the links between the two types of awareness and autonomic function: Autonomic dysfunction, especially high sympathetic tone at baseline and/or attenuated reactivity or variability to stress, appears to be involved in disturbance of emotional and interoceptive awareness. (3) Several studies suggest that a link or a cooperative relationship exists between emotional and somatic awareness, and that somatic awareness is the more fundamental of the two types of awareness. Emotional awareness, somatic awareness and autonomic homeostatic processing generally occur in parallel or concurrently. However, some complex features of pathologies include coexistence of reduced interoceptive awareness and somatosensory amplification. The autonomic homeostatic process is fundamentally involved in emotional and somatic awareness. Investigation of these types of awareness with both neuroimaging evaluations and estimation of peripheral autonomic function are required as next steps for exploration of the relationship between awareness and human somatic states including somatic symptoms as well as general psychosomatic health … MORE

Low back pain is a common and costly health complaint for which there are several moderately effective treatments. In some fields there is evidence that funder and financial conflicts are associated with trial outcomes. It is not clear whether effect sizes in back pain trials relate to journal impact factor, reporting conflicts of interest, or reporting funding. This study was a systematic review of English-language papers reporting randomised controlled trials of treatments for non-specific low back pain, published between 2006-2012. The authors modelled the relationship using 5-year journal impact factor, and categories of reported of conflicts of interest, and categories of reported funding (reported none and reported some, compared to not reporting these) using meta-regression, adjusting for sample size … MORE

Investigation of the effects of the impairment of different nutritional pathways on the intervertebral disc degeneration patterns in terms of spatial distributions of cell density, glycosaminoglycan content, and water content. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that impairment of different nutritional pathways would result in different degenerative patterns in human discs … ABSTRACT

Neck and low back pain are significant health problems due to their high prevalence among the general population. Educational intervention commonly aims to reduce the symptoms and risk for additional problems by increasing the participant’s knowledge, which in turn will alter the person’s behavior. The primary aim of this study was to review randomize controlled trials (RCTs) to gain insights into the effectiveness of education for the prevention and treatment of non-specific neck and low back pain … ABSTRACT

Cervical artery dysfunction is a reported potential risk associated with manual therapy applied to the cervical and cervicothoracic spine. While a variety of physical examination tests have been advocated to screen patients who may be at risk of adverse events during or after manipulation, their clinical utility is limited. This paper provides an overview of the literature and current thinking with regard to risk assessment and clinical action related to the application of manual and exercise therapy for the cervical and upper thoracic spine … ABSTRACT

Tensegrity has been proposed as a unifying mechanism between structures at cellular, connective tissue and whole body level. Originating in the fields of sculpture and architecture, tensegrity has recently received increasing attention from practitioners and researchers of manual therapy. Notwithstanding this, evidence regarding the role of the tensegrity principle to manual therapy practice is lacking. This qualitative study explored the conception of tensegrity amongst manual therapy practitioners and how knowledge of the physical principle of tensegrity may influence manual therapy practitioners’ clinical decision-making … ABSTRACT

Postoperative complications are a major concern after gastrointestinal surgery. Resolving movement restrictions such as postoperative paralysis, osteopathic manipulative treatment (OMT) may be beneficial. The OMANT pilot study was the first prospective trial to investigate the feasibility, safety and potential benefits of OMT after gastrointestinal surgery … ABSTRACT