My memory is pretty good, but my back is driving me crazy…
Helping your brain help your body.
- Annotation largely in earlier chapter.
- H Flor driving antinociception
- In its early history, enduring pain was a relatively infrequently occuring negative outcome following surgical mastectomy. That picture has changed over the past 3-4 decades; now, estimates of enduring pain justifying treatment range from about 25 to 60% of post-surgical cases, with that pain persisting over a period of many months to years in the majority of treated women. See, for example, Jung BF et al (2003) Neuropathic pain following breast cancer surgery: proposed classification and research update. Pain 104:1; Meyerowitz BE (1980) Psychosocial correlates of breast cancer and its treatments. Psychological Bulll 87:108. Gartner R et al. (2009) Changes in pain perception in mastectomy. JAMA (doi:10.1001/jama.1568)
- Knee replacement surgery is a relatively modern invention. Over a 30-or-so year history, the number of replacement procedures has risen to about a million/year in the US; by 2030, epidemiologists predict that more than 3 million procedures will be conducted in medicare patients alone (e.g., Cram P et al, 2012, Total knee arthroplasticy volume, utilization, and outcomes among Medicare beneficiaries, 1991-2010. JAMA 308:1227; Slover J, Zuckerman JD, 2012, Increasing use of total knee replacement and revision surgery. JAMA 308:1266). There is nearly as great a rate of growth of spinal surgical procedures targeting back pain. For example, see Brox JL et al, 2010, Four-year follow-up of surgical versus non-surgical therapy for chronic low back pain. Ann Rheum Dis 69:1643; Devo RA, 2013,. http://depts.washington.edu/ccor/studies/SpineSurgEpi.shtml
- For a review analyzing how all that sitting is bad for your health, you might begin with Chau JY et al, 2013, Daily sitting time and all-cause mortality: a meta-analysis. PLoS One 8(11): e80000. Doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0080000If that does not get you up out of your chair, read Veerman JL et al, 2012, Television viewing time and reduced life expectancy: a life table analysis. Br. J Sports Med 46:927. They note that once you get up to 6 hours of TV viewing/ day, every hour you spend watching the tube subtracts more than 20 minutes from your lifespan!
- Jerri Edwards and colleagues from the University of South Florida (who have conducted many important studies related to healthy aging) conducted a highly controlled study evaluating the impacts of losing your ability to move around town in your car. See Edwards JD et al, 2009, Driving status and three-year mortality among community-dwelling older adults. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci 64:300. Note that these scientists very closely considered every other factor in matching people who had given up driving except for that single distinction. Alas, those folks had a >4-fold chance of dying, over the following year. A large number of studies document almost equally discouraging statistics for those individuals who lose their physical mobility.My takeaway message from this class of research: 1) Keep your brain and body in shape in ways that continue to support your safe driving and physical mobility. 2) If you DO give up driving, and/or DO lose the ability to run or walk through your world, get thee to the brain gym and the physical gym and work harder at driving around THERE!