News

Mind-Controlling Exoskeletons

At the meeting I attended in Japan, there was an exciting talk about exoskeletons and how research is enabling paralysed patients to control exoskeleton bodysuits with their mind. Exoskeleton, by definition, is a “skeleton outside of the body”. Human exoskeletons are motorised external frames or ‘bodysuits’ that can be worn to support a person [...]

2019-11-30T09:17:03+00:00 November 28th, 2019|

International Sports and Spines Congress 2019

I recently attended the First Biennial International Sports and Spine Congress held in Tokyo, Japan. Organised by the Seattle Science Foundation, leading members of the international spinal surgical community discussed and debated controversies in the management of spinal conditions and injuries in sportsmen and women. Topics ranged from traumatic brain and spine sporting injuries [...]

2020-02-11T19:22:37+00:00 November 16th, 2019|

How does Mindfulness help chronic pain?

There has been a lot of news recently about ‘Mindfulness’ and its benefits so I thought I would write a little about its history and and an overview of how it works. Mindfulness does not suit or work for everyone but I think it is important to understand the scientific basis of Mindfulness and that [...]

2019-11-09T10:16:06+00:00 November 9th, 2019|

New Report: Behavioural intervention increases physical activity in lumbar surgery patients

Research has shown that interactively encouraging patients to perform exercise after lumbar surgery has beneficial effects compared giving them simple written advice and less regular follow-up. The report which was presented at EUROSPINE 2019 suggested that “psychosocial behavioural intervention administered in the spine care setting was successful in increasing physical activity after recuperation from [...]

2019-11-01T17:50:04+00:00 November 1st, 2019|

New research shows link between chronic pain and weather

Scientists from the University of Manchester have been looking at how and if the weather affects peoples pain levels. The study was funded by the charity ‘Versus Arthritis’ and looked at data collected from 2,658 people, who provided daily information on pain levels for six months. The group had a range of different health issues, predominantly [...]

2019-10-28T09:58:54+00:00 October 28th, 2019|

Life-sized model shows what office workers might look like in 20 years

A life-sized model has been unveiled today showing what desk-bound office workers will look like in the future unless the work environment and people’s behaviours change.  The life-sized doll named Emma has: a permanently hunched back from leaning over desk varicose veins from poor blood circulation due to sitting down too long red eyes [...]

2019-10-24T18:20:58+00:00 October 24th, 2019|

Lumbar Decompression: Gold Standard for Spinal Stenosis

A report presented at EUROSPINE 2019 shows that decompression surgery remains the ‘gold-standard’ for lumbar spinal stenosis. A long-term study looking at decompression surgery versus stand-alone interspinous process devices in the treatment of spinal stenosis was reported at EUROSPINE 2019. The results demonstrate that even though implantation of a stand-alone interspinous process device (IPD) can [...]

2019-10-21T15:43:46+00:00 October 21st, 2019|

Royal Patron of Horatio’s Garden

Horatio’s Garden has just announced that Princess Eugenie has become the charity’s Royal Patron. Her Royal Highness will be supporting the charity’s vision of bringing thriving gardens to all the UK’s regional spinal injuries centres. As many people know, Princess Eugenie had corrective spinal surgery for her scoliosis when she was 12 years old at [...]

2020-02-11T19:14:00+00:00 October 14th, 2019|

Futuristic Intra-operative imaging

A new, alternative intro-operative technology for imaging patients, called the Loop-X was unveiled at the North American Spine Society (NASS) 2019 conference last week by a company called BrainLab. It is still in the testing stage and has not yet been approved by the FDA in America or any authority elsewhere in the world and [...]

2019-10-05T18:51:53+00:00 October 5th, 2019|