Vårdhögskolan i Göteborg, Institutionen för rehabilitering

Abstract

The present health care system faces a huge unsolvable problem with all the various chronic pain syndromes. This project is built on the assumption that we act in accordance with our self image. This assumption implies that a patients deficient body and movement perception, particularly kinaesthesia, can be the underlying problem in many cases of undiagnosed dysfunction. Emanating from this hypothesis, teaching in sensory-motor learning exercises is suggested as a health promoting intervention. A physiologic explanation that supports the hypothesis is presented by professor Johansson at Arbetslivsinstitutet in Umeå, Sweden. His research is focused on understanding how the nervous system encodes proprioceptive information.

Three patients suffering from chronic low back pain and three healthy controls are included in this experimental pilot study. The primary objective is to demonstrate that sensory-motor learning exercises, aiming at improving body- and movement perception, can improve the performance of complex movement of relevance for daily life, when monitored by an opto-electronic camera system. This kind of system provides a truly objective and reproducible quantification of the performance. The second objective is to monitor changes in the patients own subjective assessment of pain intensity and physical ability.

The result of the objective measurements show that the opto-electronic camera system can discriminate between healthy controls and disabled low back patients performances. Moreover, after three months teaching, the movement time of the low back patients decreases and the "simultaneity index" increases. This result confirms the hypothesis. Moreover, the subjective results show that all three patients experience less pain and huge functional improvements. After three months teaching, one of the three patients have returned to full time work after three years sick leave. The ultimate proposition of this project is that meaning, understanding and rationality arise from and are conditioned by the patterns of our bodily experience.

Keywords

Chronic pain, Sensory motor performance, Body- and movement perception, Health promotion

Contact

Schön-Ohlsson Christina

Institution

Vårdhögskolan i Göteborg, Institutionen för rehabilitering

Postaddress

Box 111

City

SE-405 30 Göteborg

Country

Sweden

E-mail

chso@ufhs.gu.se

Phone

+ 46 31 773 57 53

Fax

+ 46 31 773 57 23