"Exercise may be the best treatment of chronic pain," say doctors at a new clinic for dealing with pain. "People with chronic pain need to stop lying around, go out more, and start exercising." The instinctive reaction to acute pain is to stop moving and to try to protect the source of pain. But it seems that this is often not productive, especially in the case of back pain. Back pain, after headaches and tiredness, has become the third most common reason for people to visit their doctors. Painful backs now account for millions of days off work.
Lumbar (腰部的) pains are partly the price humans pay for taking their forelimbs off the ground, but they are made worse by a sedentary (久坐不动的) lifestyle. Lack of exercise slowly decreases the flexibility and strength of muscles, so that it is more difficult to take pressure off the site of pain. Exercise is essential It releases endorphins (内啡肽), the body"s "feel-good" chemicals, which are natural painkillers. In fact, these are so important that researchers are now looking for drugs that can maintain a comfortable level of endorphins in the body.
Most people who go to a family doctor complaining of pain are prescribed pain-killing drugs rather than exercise. Since finding the cause of backache is not so easy, doctors frequently do not know the precise cause of the discomfort, and as the pain continues, sufferers end up taking stronger doses or a series of different drugs. "It"s crazy," says Dr. Brasseur, a therapist at the International Association for the Study of Pain. "Some of them are taking different drugs prescribed by different doctors, I"ve just seen a patient who was taking two drugs which turned out to be the same thing under different names."
A generation of new pain clinics now operates on the basis that drugs are best avoided. Once patients have undergone the initial physical and psychological check up, their medication is cut down as much as possible. Taking patients off drugs also prepares them for physical activity.
In some pain-relief clinics, patients begin the day with muscle contraction and relaxation exercises, followed by an hour on exercise bikes. Later in the day, they practice tai chi (太极), self-defense, and deep thought. This compares with an average of two-and-a-half hours" physiotherapy (理疗) a week in a traditional hospital program. "The idea is to strengthen and to increase long-lasting energy, flexibility, and confidence," explains Bill Wiles, a consultant pain doctor in Liverpool. "Patients undergoing this therapy get back to work and resume healthy active lifestyles much sooner than those subjected to more conservative treatment."
单选题
To treat pain, patients should stop moving around.