Does this sound like Bullshido? I report, you decide.
Martial Arts Used To Treat Back Pain
Chicago-Area Doctor Tries Innovative Therapy
POSTED: 8:20 AM CST February 9, 2004
UPDATED: 8:26 AM CST February 9, 2004
CHICAGO – Patients suffering from back pain often turn to physical therapy for relief. Now, the alternative medicine director at Alexian Brothers Hospital says there’s something that works even better.
“His technique comes from the sometimes-violent world of martial arts,” NBC5’s Nesita Kwan reported.
Kwan compared the physical moves of actor Bruce Lee in his martial-arts movies to martial-arts moves by real patients who are using the moves as self-defense against back pain.
“We’re not hitting bricks on the forehead or side-kicking doors and that kind of stuff,” Dr. Patrick Massey told Kwan. “Martial arts is about health.”
Massey had a black belt before becoming a doctor. He also had back pain and tried using movements to fix it.
“The pain just, really, began to melt away,” Massey recalled.
Massey began suggesting his program to patients and had surprising results.
“About 90 percent of those walk out of here pain-free,” Massey said about the patients who tried martial arts.
Massey said his carefully chosen movements target the specific tissues in the back that are inflamed. The movements increase blood flow to that area. The increased blood flow, in turn, promotes healing and washes away the inflammatory toxins causing the pain.
“We’ve taken different martial art forms, and we’ve taken little pieces of those forms, and we have adapted them so that patients who are in pain can do these movements,” Massey said.
Two patients, Mary Evans and Lorraine Madia, work out with the moves they’ve learned at home every day. Every few weeks, they return to Massey to learn new moves.
Evans’ back pain started when she was in a car accident 26 years ago. Madia’s pain started more recently and was caused by repeatedly bending over a jewelry counter at work.
Kwan said the two women both use martial arts as a cure. Both women told her they feel much better as a result of the martial arts therapy.
Massey said his treatment may even work with patients who have problems that otherwise would require surgery, such as a slipped disc.
For more information about the benefits of martial arts for back pain, as presented in HealthWatch at 10 p.m., go to AltMed.org or contact Dr. Patrick Massey at (847) 923-0046.
Is this the real power of Kata?