A recent article in the Daily Telegraph (12/9/16 Is your back pain all the mind?) is a must read for all back pain sufferers and manual therapists. Set against a background statistic of 10 million working days being lost to back pain in 2014, with nearly half of them belonging to backs in the 50-64 age bracket, physiotherapist David Rogers has spotlighted other causes of the pain and more appropriate treatment. He has coined the term “biopsychosocial” which he has been using as a treatment strategy over the past 6 years in the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital in Birmingham. He has found a connection between thinking patterns and back pain and evolved techniques for treatment that take this into account. At Northlondonosteopaths Alan Nevies and his colleagues work very hard to address the loss of confidence, anxiety and depression that may be present in any given case and making the pain worse.

At north London osteopaths we use a flag system to pick up unhealthy beliefs about the patients pain and their anxiety over it. These beliefs and anxieties may well become a barrier to recovery for many patients, for example someone with low back pain may think that any movement at all will cause him sharp pain will not keep his back moving. This is seriously disadvantageous to a patient who needs to keep moving as part of their recovery.

Using the biosphyscosocial model north London osteopaths will not just give hands on treatment but also advice, reassurance, and confidence to patients to enable them to recover as quickly as possible.

At northlondonosteopaths Alan Nevies and his colleagues are trained to look at the patient as a whole. This enables us to treat the patient in the most suitable way taking into account physical, psychological and social aspects, always keeping an eye on the ‘big picture’.