Damiano Francesconi - Kinesiologist
Adults and kinesiotherapy
Combat back pain with my postural training program
What is Kinesitherapy?
Meaning, benefits and exercises for correct posture of adults
The scientific community states that 80 % of adults experience back pain (or lombalgia) during their lifetime. Back pain strikes mainly people of working age, and consequently causes high costs in terms of medical expenses and lost working days.
Postural gymnastic is an effective means to fight back pain. Painful symptoms deriving from various causes, such as incorrect position maintained for long periods, sedentary lifestyle, muscular retraction, heavy exertion, and traumatic events, can be reduced or eliminated completely thanks to particular postural exercises of stretching and muscular reinforcement which act in synergy.
Definition
Kinesitherapy means therapy of movement (from Greek, Kinesis = moving).
Kinesitherapy for the treatment of back pain it is also called “postural-antalgic exercises” and it is based on a set of postures, soft movements and strengthening of weak muscles.
It aims at restoring a good neuromuscular balance and above all it is aimed at reducing painful symptoms.
What does a kinesiotherapy treatment involve?
The kinesitheraphy protocol includes:
- Respiration exercises for diaphragm re-education;
- Muscles elongation exercises for lower limbs, spine, and muscles of the upper limbs;
- Exercises for the elongation of the spine by means of various postures (fundamentally important in order to reduce inter-disc pressure);
- Exercises for the strengthening of abdominal and dorsolumbar muscles;
- Proprioceptive exercises which are useful to “re-programme” the correct neuro-muscle balance of the spine;
- Patient’s education to the correct postures to be kept during the patient’s daily activities.
Who is kinesitherapy recommended to?
It is recommended to all the people who suffer from lumbalgia and lumbocruralgia from adolescence to elderly age.
How long does a kinesitherapy treatment last?
On average good result can be reached if the treatment lasts at least three months with two session a week for around one hour each, together with 3-4 exercises that the patient will have to do home for not more than 10 minutes a day.
What are the advantage and future perspectives for kinesitherapy?
Kinesitherapy is an active treatment which gives the patient the opportunity to self-treatment, that is to say to do the exercises at home once the treatment has finished. On this subject, after 15 years of study has been realised the “protocollofrancesconi” a kinesitherapy programme, which has given the best results.
Your Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently asked questions about back pain
Postural – antalgic gymnastics is important for the prevention and treatment of annoying pains that can affect the various areas of the musculoskeletal system (upper limbs, lower limbs, spine) of adult subjects for various causes: incorrect or protracted positions during the performance of their work activities, sedentariness, muscle rigidity, sudden efforts involving the back and traumatic events of various kinds.
More and more frequent are the medical prescriptions of antalgic postural gymnastics, especially for the excellent results obtained in the treatment of low back pain. It is a gymnastics that involves the whole body with the aim of reducing or eliminating painful symptoms completely. It involves stretching the muscles of the upper limbs, lower limbs and back, strengthening the back-lumbar and abdominal muscles and educates in the search for the correct posture.
They are pain syndromes often (but not always) caused by disc alteration of the lumbar rachis. A person suffers from lumbalgia when the pain symptoms are limited to the lumbar region. A person suffers from lumbosciatalgia and lumbocruralgia when the pain extends up to the lower limb in the area of the sciatic nerve or crural nerve.
Disc protusion is when the intervertebral disc located between the two vertebrae (made up by an external part called fibrous ring and internal part defined as pulpy nucleus) gets reduced in height due to various reasons. Once it becomes overabundant ( “ a bit like the effect of jam splashed between two pieces of bread”) and reduced in height, it becomes convex all along its circumference and it forms a widely spread and regular bulge (“a bulging disc”). The pain at lumbar level is due to the irritation or compression of the nerves that reach the fibrous nerve as well as the neighbouring structures ( posterior longitudinal ligament, periosteum which covers the vertebrae, capsule-ligamentous formations, etc).
Hernia (with different levels of severity) is when a more marked bulge is formed on a part of nuclear material through complete fissuration of the fibrous ring. The hernia (according to the area where it comes out) can irritate or compress the nervous roots of the sciatic nerve or femoral nerve resulting in pain, paresthesia and reduction of reflexes in the affected lower limb.
The “compression” of the intervertebral disc can be caused by several factors:
a) Age – (during the aging process, the intervertebral disc is affected by progressive decay)
b) Traumatic events – (for example: fall from height)
c) Daily stress on the spine – ( heavy jobs, daily assistance to patients lying in bed)
d) Incorrect postures – there are people who do not suffer from a trauma in the spine nor carry out heavy duties but nevertheless they often report lumbalgic pain due to static or sedentary postures maintained for long periods of time ( for example: sales agents, truck drivers, people who sit at the office for many hours a day). Static postures that are kept for long periods of time may cause general muscle-fascia stiffness and, over time, they can alter the balance of paravertebral structures.
e) Overweight – (it is not the main cause but it can be a worsening factor)
After an accurate objective test is carried out, the doctor may better understand the degree of the pathology by performing instrumental test. The first test to be performed is a lumbar radiography, which provides the first indication. It can suggest a disc distress, but it does not detect light protrusion, since only the vertebrae can be seen and not the intervertebral discs. Instead axial tomography (CAT) and/or magnetic resonance (NMR) are more detailed tests which provide a better overview of the intervertebral disc.
Between 80% and 90% of adults report “pain in the back” during their life and 75% of them at working age. Considering that these diseases affect people during their most productive age, from 40 to 50 years old, lumbalgia has high social and health costs due to medical expenses and lost working days.
Damiano Francesconi
Kinesiologist with 25 years of experience in back pain prevention and treatment
I am a kinesiologist and a motor and postural re-educator with 25 years of experience, since 1995 I help adults and children to correct postural defects that can lead to back pain.. In my professional career, I have helped hundreds of people to improve their health thanks to the disclosure of my “protocol” that helps to fight back pain with postural gymnastics exercises. Protocolfrancesconi exercises are simple and do not require specific tools. For this reason, anyone can perform them in the comfort of their own home!
Contact me to find out how to eliminate the problems that cause you back pain!
The protocollofrancesconi
Improve your posture with my video course!
The protocollofrancesconi is the result of 15 years on continuous study and practice in the field of postural training.
The protocollofrancesconi is a postural gymnastic programme aimed at fighting painful symptoms deriving fromlumbago and dorsodynia.
The exercises are simple and need no special equipment. For this reason everyone can carry them out in their own home.