Prevalence of lower back pain in professional and amateur golfers - Essay Example

College Introduction Golf is one the most interesting sports in the world. Many people love this game despite its uniqueness in how it is played as compared to the other games played. Many people can play this type of game. It does not have any age bracketed and does not have skill levels for one t participate in it. Furthermore, both male and female participant can compete together something which unusual to the other sports. It is among one of the few sports that do not need any standardized field as the playing ground. It is played on golf courses that have unique designs. Golf has rules that are followed by the golfers. Winner is the golfer with the least number of strokes to all the holes. People who are participating in golf are increasing in number over time. Many people in countries like America, Australia and England are now supporting golf in large numbers. Most of them have made golf their carrier sport and they earn a lot of money through it. This has made the of golfers number to increase at very high rate. American golfers who are over 18 are now over 2.7 million. In Europe, the number is also increasing and it is almost hitting 44 million (Jaffe, 2010). Golf like any other sport requires many exercises before the game. Every participant in the game must undergo rigorous exercises before the start of the game. This helps in improving physical fitness of the player and improves the performance. The way this game is played makes many players do exercises. Most parts of the body are greatly involved in the game. Most of the people of play golf have high chances of suffering from low back pain. According to the current statistics from a research that was done, it is known that 22% to 24% of the professional golfers and 35% of amateur golfers have high chances of suffering from the low back pain. The research shows further that male golfers are highly susceptible to the low back pain as compared to the female golfers. Male golfers who are susceptible the low back pain is 25% to 37% while for female golfers is 22% to 27% only. Low back pain is widespread among the golfers because they do not care about the effects the game is causing to their bodies. Most of them enjoy playing this forgetting how the game in affecting their body parts. Low back pain takes a long time before it is felt. Many activities that golfers neglect during practice are the causes of low back pain. They seem to be minor activities but they cause great harm to the golfers’ bodies. Some of them include poor warm up and flexibility, improper swing or technique and poor posture. These are the mere things that seem to harmless but they are very dangerous to the golfers (Mchardy, Pollard & Kehuiluo, 2007) . However, low back pain has been a very common problem to many golfers. Chiropractic doctors should be aware of the effects it has caused to the golfers. These doctors should know the causes of this presentation especially the golf swing. The main objective of this research is to discuss about low back pain and some of the causes of that bring it into existence. Body Mechanism injury of lower back pain Lower back pain is mainly caused by the golf swing. The lumbar Spine in the back of the human body comprises very many structures. These structures are ligaments, muscles, tendons and the vertebral bodies. Each structure has its specific function during golf swing. During golf swing, there is twisting and swinging that takes place. This movement is against the spine that is in a constant position and has no motion on its full range of motion. Golf swing exposes spine to extra tensile movement and load. Spine has soft tissues that are exposed to a force that is eight times the load exposed to the whole body. Golfers do prolonged twisting, standing and bending during the game. This causes a lot of stress accumulation on the lumbar spine causing damage to most the body parts like muscles, discs, ligaments and vertebral body. As these structures are destroyed, it leads to low back pain injury (Evans, 2007) . Methods Studies of golf injuries were conducted to examine the causes of low back injury. A computer search test was done of Index Medicus (1966 to 2004), CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature) (1982 to 2004) and MANTIS (Manual Alternative and Natural Therapy Index System) (1880 to present). The main aim of theses researches was to find the correlation between the low back pain, golf and other injuries associated with golf. Each of these institutions did the researches differently. MANTIS used 20 papers for golf and back, 19 papers for golf and injury, 14 papers for golf and low back and lastly they used six papers for golf and low back and injury. Much elimination of publications in the database took place until they were able to establish 30 papers from the all database. The papers were examined by deeply looking at the relevance of each paper to the point of study. Papers that were relevant were chosen while the irrelevant ones were omitted from the list. This criterion was used to avoid choosing papers that were of no importance in the research. The World Scientific Congress on Golf further proceeded with other search on the relevant papers to the criteria used for the search. They selected eight papers from the list. Papers selected also must have information in low back pain. However, all the selected papers were taken into consideration. Results From the completed search, many facts were noted down. It was found out that out of 282 right-handed golfers, 54% of them were suffering from low back pain. 21% suffered left side pain while 28% suffered right side pain. It was also noticed that men suffered from the low back pain more as compared to the female golfers. The percentage of men who suffered was 49% while for women was 28%. Women suffered more on the shoulder than men. In addition, 28% of female golfers suffered from shoulder injury as compared to the 10% of the male golfers. Elbow injury was also dominant among the female golfers. The percentage was 13 while for male golfers was 9%. Young golfers suffered right sided back pain as compared to the older golfers. Out of the 196 young golfers, 8% of them suffered occurring low back pain while 45% had recurring low back pain. Depending on the fields, that golfer had been participating in before playing golf, the ratio of those who played golf only to those who had played other was 4:1 recurrence of low back pain. Radiographs of professional golfers were taken gave other results. It was found out that the probability of osteophytic formation among these golfers was (P Read More