At least 70 percent of America’s 30 million elementary school students use computers, according to a recent New York Times article. As a result of this increased usage, doctors of chiropractic are treating more young patients suffering from the effects of working at computer stations that are either designed for adults or poorly designed for children. Many children are already suffering from repetitive motion injuries (RMI) such as carpal tunnel syndrome and chronic pain in the hands, back, neck and shoulders.

A recently published study conducted by a team of researchers from Cornell University found that 40 percent of the elementary school children they studied used computer workstations that put them at postural risk. The remaining 60 percent scored in a range indicating “some concern.”

“Emphasis needs to be placed on teaching children how to properly use computer workstations,” stated Dr. Scott Bautch, a member of the American Chiropractic Association’s Council on Occupational Health. “Poor work habits and computer workstations that don’t fit a child’s body during the developing years can have harmful physical effects that can last a lifetime. Parents need to be just as concerned about their children’s interaction with their computer workstations as they are with any activities that may affect their children’s long-term health,” added Dr. Bautch.

What can you do?
To reduce the possibility of your child suffering painful and possibly disabling injuries, the American Chiropractic Association (ACA) and its Council on Occupational Health offer the following tips:

• If children and adults in your home share the same computer workstation, make certain that the workstation can be modified for each child’s use.
• Position the computer monitor so the top of the screen is at or below the child’s eye level. This can be accomplished by taking the computer off its base or stand, or having the child sit on firm pillows or phone books to reach the desired height.
• Make sure the chair at the workstation fits the child correctly. An ergonomic back cushion, pillow or a rolled-up towel can be placed in the small of the child’s back for added back support. There should be two inches between the front edge of the seat and the back of the knees. The chair should have arm supports so that elbows are resting within a 70- to 135-degree angle to the computer keyboard.
• Wrists should be held in a neutral position while typing – not angled up or down. The mousing surface should be close to the keyboard so your child doesn’t have to reach or hold the arm away from the body.
• The child’s knees should be positioned at an approximate 90- to 120-degree angle. To accomplish this angle, feet can be placed on a foot rest, box, stool or similar object.
• Reduce eyestrain by making sure there is adequate lighting and that there is no glare on the monitor screen. Use an antiglare screen if necessary.
• Limit your child’s time at the computer and make sure he or she takes periodic stretch breaks during computing time. Stretches can include: clenching hands into fists and moving them in 10 circles inward and 10 circles outward; placing hands in a praying position and squeezing them together for 10 seconds and then pointing them downward and squeezing them together for 10 seconds; spreading fingers apart and then closing them one by one; standing and wrapping arms around the body and turning all the way to the left and then all the way to the right.
• Your child’s muscles need adequate hydration to work properly and avoid injury. Encourage your child to drink four 8-ounce glasses of water a day. Carbonated beverages, juices and other sweet drinks are not a substitute.
• Urge your child’s school or PTA officials to provide education on correct computer ergonomics and to install ergonomically correct workstations.

“If your child continues to complain of pain and strain from sitting at a computer, see a doctor of chiropractic,” urges Dr. Bautch. “A chiropractor can help alleviate your child’s pain and help prevent further injury.”

A review from Tam H. from Saratoga, CA:

OUTSTANDING care, knowledge, skills, and methods! I have been to three other chiropractors, and Dr. Brad is the best. I took my 83 year old mom there, who, by default, is very mistrusting of doctors and resistant to receiving medical help. She came in with leg, foot, and shoulder pain. Dr. Brad listened to my mom talk, and through this process, was able to determine the root of her problems. He asked numerous questions, tested and re-tested different areas to see the body’s response, and has been using a wide variety of modalities in her treatment. Dr. Brad is one of kind. He is innovative in his approach, intuitive in his decisions, and works according to the body’s response. Since I take my mom to her appointments, I am able to sit in on her treatments. It is FASCINATING to watch what Dr. Brad does, and he does an excellent job explaining to me and my mom what he is doing and why. He is not a “one-size fits all” doctor who gives the standard procedure to each patient. Dr. Brad goes the extra mile with my mom’s individual needs and spends the needed time with her. My mom and I are so impressed with Dr. Brad’s high quality care!!

 

 

• Maintain a healthy diet and weight.
• Remain active—under the supervision of your doctor of chiropractic.
• Avoid prolonged inactivity or bed rest.
• Warm up or stretch before exercising or other physical activities, such as gardening.
• Maintain proper posture.
• Wear comfortable, low-heeled shoes.
• Sleep on a mattress of medium firmness to minimize any curve in your spine.
•  Lift with your knees, keep the object close to your body, and do not twist when lifting.
• Quit smoking. Smoking impairs blood flow, resulting in oxygen and nutrient deprivation to spinal tissues.
• Work with your doctor of chiropractic to ensure that your computer workstation is ergonomically correct.

Ask Well: How Long Does a Flu Shot Last?

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Q

How long is flu vaccination effective?

Reader Question • 2 votes

A

Flu vaccines are different from vaccines for other diseases, such as measles, because they are given every year. The chief reason, experts say, is not that the vaccine wears off, but that flu viruses mutate so fast as they move around the world. The flu shot or nasal mist — which now may contain up to four separate vaccines against four separate influenza viruses — must be reformulated every year in an effort to match the most common circulating strains.

How long your own flu shot lasts depends on how powerfully your own immune system reacts to it, said Dr. John J. Treanor, a vaccine expert at the University of Rochester medical school. In a young, healthy person, protection might last for years, even as circulating flu strains change. Conversely, he said, there is some debate about whether older people or those with compromised immune systems ought to get two flu shots per season, since a shot they got in October may wear off by March or April.

“It’s a controversial question, and there’s not a lot of direct data on it,” Dr. Treanor said.

The need for repeat vaccinations is different for each disease, he added. Two measles shots in childhood usually give lifelong protection. Tetanus shots should be repeated every 10 years or so. Pertussis, or whooping cough, shots are moving in that direction as well, since a new vaccine with fewer side effects that was introduced the 1990s gives shorter-lived protection.

Fitting in fitness at home

Fitting in fitness: Finding time for physical activity

Finding time for fitness can be tough. The key is making it convenient. Consider these practical suggestions. By Mayo Clinic Staff

You know fitness is important for your health and well-being. And you want to get more active, but your days are a blur of work, household chores, errands, and time with family and friends. Setting aside enough time to sleep — let alone exercise — can be tough.

So how can you find time for fitness? The key is to be flexible and make fitness a way of life. And remember all physical activity — not just formal exercise programs — adds up to a healthier you.

Time spent at home doesn’t have to be “couch potato” time. To make fitness a priority at home:

• Wake up early. Get up 30 minutes earlier than you normally do and use the extra time to walk on your treadmill or take a brisk walk around the neighborhood.
• Make chores count. Mop the floor, scrub the bathtub or do other housework at a pace fast enough to get your heart pumping. Outdoor work counts, too. Mowing the lawn with a push mower is a great way to burn calories. Raking and hoeing strengthen your arms and back, and digging works your arms and legs.
• Be active while watching TV. Use hand weights, ride a stationary bike or do a stretching routine during your favorite shows. Get off the couch to change the channel or adjust the volume.
• Involve the whole family. Take group walks before or after dinner. Play catch. Ride your bikes. It’s best to build up to about 30 minutes of continuous activity, but you can exercise in shorter bursts, too.
• Get your dog into the act. Take daily walks with Fido or Fluffy. If you don’t have a dog, borrow one. An enthusiastic dog may give you the motivation you need to lace up your walking shoes.

Work out at work

To fit in more physical activity while you’re on the job:

• Make the most of your commute. Walk or bike to work. If you ride the bus, get off a few blocks early and walk the rest of the way.
• Take the stairs whenever you can. If you have a meeting on another floor, get off the elevator a few floors early and use the stairs. Better yet, skip the elevator entirely.
• Take fitness breaks. Rather than hanging out in the lounge with coffee or a snack, take a short walk.
• Start a lunchtime walking group. The regular routine and the support of your co-workers may help you stick with the program.
• Put it on the calendar. Schedule physical activity as you would any other appointment during the day. Don’t change your exercise plans for every interruption that comes along.
• Take it on the road. If you travel for work, plan ahead. Bring your jump-rope or choose a hotel that has fitness facilities. If you’re stuck in an airport waiting for a plane, grab your bags and take a walk.

More tips for fitting in fitness

Here are a few more ways you can add more activity to your routine:

• Get more out of errands. When you go to the mall or grocery store, park toward the back of the lot and walk the extra distance. If you have a little extra time, walk inside for a lap or two before you start shopping. Keep a pair of walking shoes in your car so that you’re ready when you find a few minutes for exercise.
• Plan active outings. Make a date with a friend to hike in a local park, or take a family trip to the zoo.
• Get social. Try a dance club, hiking group or golf league. Encouragement from others can help you stay with a new activity.
• Join a team. Sign up for a softball, soccer or volleyball team through your local parks and recreation department. Making a commitment to a team is a great motivator.
• Join a fitness club. Sign up for a group exercise class at a nearby fitness club. The cost may be an added incentive to stick with it.

There’s no single best way to fit physical activity into your day. Your lifestyle, job and family responsibilities will point to the most convenient time and place for fitness. Do what works for you — and make daily physical activity a habit you keep.

Evaluate how you react to stress

Stress management starts with an honest assessment of how you react to stress. You can then counter unhealthy ways of reacting with more-helpful techniques. By Mayo Clinic Staff

It’s hard to avoid stress these days with so many competing demands for your time and attention. But with good stress management skills, you can cope with stress in a healthy way.

One of the first steps toward good stress management is understanding how you react to stress — and making changes if necessary. Take an honest look at how you react to stress and then adopt or modify stress management techniques to make sure the stress in your life doesn’t lead to health problems.

Stress management skills often don’t come naturally. You can learn new stress management skills or modify your existing stress management skills to help you cope better, though.

First, take a look at how you react to stress. Some people seem to take everything in stride. Their naturally laid-back attitudes shine through, even in stressful situations. Another deadline? Bring it on. The dishwasher is leaking? No problem, it’ll be a simple repair. Others get anxious at the first sign of a stressful situation. Running late for a meeting? Time to panic! Stuck in a traffic jam? Let the cursing begin!

Here are some common but unhealthy reactions to stress. Do any of these describe your reactions? If you’re not sure, consider keeping a daily journal for a week or so to monitor your reactions to stressful situations.

• Pain. You may unconsciously clench your jaws or fists or develop muscle tension, especially in your neck and shoulders, all of which can lead to unexplained physical pain. Stress also may cause a variety of other health ailments, including upset stomach, shortness of breath, back pain, headaches and insomnia.
• Overeating. Stress may trigger you to eat even when you’re not hungry, or you may skip exercise. In contrast, you may eat less, actually losing weight when under more stress.
• Anger. Stress may leave you with a short fuse. When you’re under pressure, you may find yourself arguing with co-workers, friends or loved ones — sometimes with little provocation or about things that have nothing to do with your stressful situation.
• Crying. Stress may trigger crying jags, sometimes seemingly without warning. Little things unrelated to your stress may leave you in tears. You also may feel lonely or isolated.
• Depression. Sometimes stress may be too much to take. You might avoid the problem, call in sick to work, feel hopeless or simply give up. Chronic stress can be a factor in the development of depression or anxiety disorders.
• Negativity. When you don’t cope well with stress, you may automatically expect the worst or magnify the negative aspects of any undesirable situation.
• Smoking. Even if you quit smoking long ago, a cigarette may seem like an easy way to relax when you’re under pressure. In fact, stress is a leading cause of having a smoking relapse. You may also find yourself turning to alcohol or drugs to numb the effects of stress.

Once you’ve identified the unhealthy reactions you may be having to uncontrolled stress, you can begin to improve your stress management skills. Stress management techniques abound, including:

• Scale back. Cut back on your obligations when possible. While it may seem easier said than done, take a close look at your daily, weekly and monthly schedule and find meetings, activities, dinners or chores that you can cut back on or delegate to someone else.
• Prepare. Stay ahead of stress by preparing for meetings or trips, scheduling your time better, and setting realistic goals for tasks both big and small. Stress mounts when you run out of time because something comes up that you didn’t account for — build in time for traffic jams, for example.
• Reach out. Make or renew connections with others. Surrounding yourself with supportive family, friends, co-workers, or clergy and spiritual leaders can have a positive effect on your mental well-being and your ability to cope with stress. Volunteer in your community.
• Take up a hobby. It may seem cliche, but when you engage in something enjoyable, it can soothe and calm your restless mind. Try reading, gardening, crafts, tinkering with electronics, fishing, carpentry, music — things that you don’t get competitive or more stressed out about.
• Relax. Physical activity, meditation, yoga, massage and other relaxation techniques can help you manage stress. It doesn’t matter which relaxation technique you choose. What matters is refocusing your attention to something calming and increasing awareness of your body.
• Get enough sleep. Lack of sufficient sleep affects your immune system and your judgment and makes you more likely to snap over minor irritations. Most people need seven to eight hours of sleep a day.
• Get professional help. If your stress management efforts aren’t helpful enough, see your doctor. Chronic, uncontrolled stress can lead to a variety of potentially serious health problems, including depression and pain.

Stress usually doesn’t just magically get better on its own. You may have to actively work on getting control of the stress in your life so that it doesn’t control you. When you first identify how you react to stressful situations, you then can put yourself in a better position to manage the stress, even if you can’t eliminate it. And if your current efforts at stress management aren’t working, try something new.

We all know someone who has suffered a serious driving-related injury that had nothing to do with being involved in a motor vehicle accident. For example, turning your head suddenly and swiftly for a last minute check of your “blind spot” before changing lanes on the interstate could result in a painful neck sprain. Getting out your car in a crowded shopping center parking lot can often be awkward and may even result in a low back injury. Bending over to lift a grocery bag out of your back seat or trunk can even cause a herniated lumbar disc with very painful consequences. Thus, driving can be dangerous, even without taking account of your innumerable fellow drivers who are talking on their cell phones, texting, combing their hair, putting on makeup, or even shaving when they should be 100% focused on  the road. Even if you’re a highly skilled, appropriately defensive driver, doing driving-related things can cause real physical injury.

Why do such injuries happen? The cause is the same as for the person who, while getting dressed in the morning, bends over to put on his or her socks, stockings, or tights and experiences a sudden, sharp pain in the low back. Later on, that pain may worsen and radiate down one leg, and a likely diagnosis of a herniated disc may ensue. “But I wasn’t doing anything wrong,” the person exclaims to his chiropractor. “All I was doing was putting on my socks.” But the chiropractor knows that the movement that apparently caused the injury was merely the last physical insult in a long chain of musculoskeletal and biomechanical deficiencies.¹

As with the person who injures his or her neck or back at home while engaged in innocuous activities of daily living such as housecleaning or taking out the trash, driving-related injuries that are not the result of an actual accident are caused by being deconditioned or out-of-shape. If your neck and back muscles, ligaments, and joints are not used to doing physical work while engaged in a full range of motion, suddenly putting them in mechanically stressful situations will very likely lead to injury. For such persons, the primary missing fitness factor involves the core muscles, the body’s group of central, deep, sheath-like muscles that provide the base for almost all movement and motion.²

Lack of core fitness is the culprit for most neck and back injuries that happen when you “weren’t doing anything”. The good news is that core training is readily available.³ You are training your core muscles whenever you do strength training or yoga. You are doing core training when you walk, run, bike, or swim, provided you are doing these activities effectively and efficiently. You don’t need special equipment. All that is required is the willingness and persistence to engage in regular vigorous exercise. The many benefits are broad and longlasting, including getting more enjoyment out of the time you spend in your car.

¹Rietveld AB: Dancers’ and musicians’ injuries. Clin Rheumatol 32(4):425-434, 2013

²Micheo W, et al: Basic principles regarding strength, flexibility, and stability exercises. PM R 4(11):805-811, 2012

³Steele J, et al: A review of the specificity of exercises designed for conditioning the lumbar extensors. Br J Sports Med October 2013: doi: 10.1136/bjsports-2013-092197. [Epub ahead of print]

“The Stress of Life” is a perennial bestseller by Hans Selye, written in 1956. Selye almost single-handedly introduced the notion of stress into the worldwide consciousness. By doing so, Selye changed the way we think about ourselves, our values, and how we conduct our lives.

As Selye observed, stress is a double-edged sword. Many types of stress are good for people, both physiologically and personally. For example, Wolff’s law states that bone will remodel (build more bone) along lines of mechanical stress. In other words, bone becomes stronger when it is subjected to physical loads. The physiological stress of weight-bearing exercise such as walking, running, and strength training helps prevent osteoporosis by making bone denser and more resilient. From a psychological perspective, the great German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, famously stated in “Twilight of the Idols” (1888), “What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.” Apparently, Nietzsche (writing in the 19th century) was far ahead of Selye in pointing to the benefits (and dangers) of stress.

Life is filled with “good” stresses. A new love relationship, a new job, or a new baby may all provide great personal happiness and the experience of fulfillment and satisfaction. But each circumstance may also place new demands on us, calling on us to be and do much more than that of which we had previously thought ourselves capable. A person may develop all sorts of adaptive responses in attempts to cope with life’s new requirements, but most of these adaptations are themselves stress-producing. Over time the adaptations become habits, stress becomes a day-by-day experience, and a host of physiological and psychological disorders and syndromes may appear.^1,2 High blood pressure, diabetes, overweight/obesity, arthritis, insomnia, and depression may all be considered as long-term maladaptive responses to stress.³

Muscular aches and pains, muscle spasms, and headaches are common physiological responses to ongoing stress. A vicious circle develops in which stress leads to muscle tightness, which constricts blood vessels, which leads to headaches, which leads to more muscle tightness, more pain, and even more stress. One’s day seems to become filled with stress and stress reactions. The good news is that means of ending these vicious circles of stress are available. Present time consciousness, regular exercise and a healthy diet, sufficient rest, and regular chiropractic care comprise a powerful tool kit for restoring balance in one’s life.

¹Wu EL, et al: Increased risk of hypertension in patients with major depressive disorder: a population-based study. J Psychosom Res 73(3):169-174, 2012

²Hristova MG: Metabolic syndrome – From the neurotrophic hypothesis to a theory. Med Hypotheses 2013 July 27 [Epub ahead of print]

³Martocchia A, et al: Targets of anti-glucocorticoid therapy for stress-related diseases. Recent Pat CNS Drug Discov 8(1):79-87, 2013

1888 Saratoga Ave.  Suite # 110  San Jose, CA 95129

www.MourouxChiroSanJose.com

Many people go to a chiropractor because they are in pain. In this first phase of care, the main goal is to reduce your symptoms. Sometimes this will require daily visits, or two to three visits per week for a time.

Most people are under the assumption that if they don’t feel any pain that there is nothing wrong with them – that they are healthy. Unfortunately, pain is a very poor indicator of health. In fact, pain and other symptoms frequently only appear after a disease or other condition has become advanced.

For example, consider a cavity in your tooth. Does it hurt when it first develops or only after it has become serious? How about heart disease? Regardless of whether you are talking about cancer, heart disease, diabetes, stress or problems with the spine, pain is usually the last thing to appear. When you begin chiropractic care, pain is also the first symptom to disappear, even though much of the underlying condition remains.