It's not your imagination: Your back has definitely gotten achier and more injury-prone as you've aged. But what's behind the growing discomfort, and is there anything you can do to make it go away?
Pain between the shoulders is common: As many as one in 10 men and one in five women experience upper back pain, according to a 2015 journal article in Occupational Medicine[1]. Often, upper back pain between the shoulders is caused by a muscle strain due to overuse, injury or poor posture, and although the resulting discomfort can range from mildly uncomfortable to severe and debilitating, the root cause can often be corrected with a combination of rest, stretching and exercise.
Results showed patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis who were released to unrestricted activity at 4 to 8 weeks after posterior spinal fusion had high return to sport rates with a rapid return to baseline performance levels.
A new treatment offers hope for people challenged with chronic back pain. It focuses on retraining how the back and the brain communicate, and was demonstrated in a randomized controlled trial. The research was performed by scientists at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Sydney and Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA) and several other Australian and European universities.
Current clinical guidelines do not recommend bed rest during treatment for osteoporotic vertebral fractures—spinal fractures that occur in bones that has been weakened by osteoporosis—because there has not been enough evidence to make conclusive recommendations. However, a recent study provides new evidence that an initial period of strict bed rest can be beneficial.
