It’s estimated that as many as 75% of us will have some form of back or neck pain at some point in our lifetime. The good news is that most of us will recover without the need for surgery—and conservative care such as physical therapy usually gets better results than surgery. Degenerative disk disease (DDD) is one cause of back and neck pain. Usually the result of the natural aging process, degenerative disk disease (DDD) is a type of osteoarthritis of the spine.
How Can a Physical Therapist Help?
Your physical therapist’s overall purpose is to help you continue to participate in your daily activities and life roles. The therapist will design a treatment program based on both the findings of the evaluation and your personal goals. The treatment program likely will be a combination of exercises.
Relieve Pain and Increase Movement
Your therapist will design: [custom_blockquote style=”blue”]
- Stretching and flexibility exercises to improve mobility in the joints and muscles of your spine and your extremities—improving motion in a joint is often the key to pain relief
- Strengthening exercises—strong trunk muscles provide support for your spinal joints, and strong arm and leg muscles help take some of the workload off your spinal joints
- Aerobic exercise, which has been shown to be helpful in relieving pain, promoting a healthy body weight, and improving overall strength and mobility—all important factors in managing DDD
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This might sound like a lot of exercise, but don’t worry: research shows that the more exercise you can handle, the quicker you’ll get rid of your pain and other symptoms.
Your physical therapist also might decide to use a combination of treatments: [custom_blockquote style=”blue”]
- Manual therapy to improve the mobility of stiff joints and tight muscles that may be contributing to your symptoms
- Posture and movement education to show you how to make small changes in how you sit, stand, bend, and lift—even in how you sleep—to help relieve your pain and help you manage your condition on your own
- Special pain treatments—such as ice, electrical stimulation, or a short course of traction—for pain that is severe and not relieved by exercise or manual therapy
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Once your pain is gone, it will be important for you to continue your new posture and movement habits to keep your back healthy.
What Is Degenerative Disk Disease?
Your spine is made up of 33 vertebrae that are stacked on top of one another. Between each of these vertebrae is a rubbery piece of cartilage called an “intervertebral disk.” Imagine the disk as a tire, with gelatin filling the hole in the tire. The tire is called the “annulus,” and the gelatin is called the “nucleus.” When we’re young—under 30 years of age—the disk is made mostly of gelatin. As we age, and sometimes with injury or excessive wear and tear, we start to lose some of that gelatin, and the volume of the disk decreases, resulting in less space between the vertebrae. The disk becomes flatter and less flexible, leaving less space between each set of vertebrae. Sometimes bone spurs form in response to this degeneration of the disk, making the spine stiff. When the rough surfaces of the vertebral joints rub together, pain and inflammation may result. Nerves may become irritated or compressed.
Disk degeneration might occur throughout several regions of the spine, or it might be limited to one disk. When it’s part of the natural aging process, the degeneration does not always lead to pain. For some people, however, it can cause a great deal of pain and disability.
You are more likely to develop DDD if you: [custom_blockquote style=”blue”]
- Smoke
- Are obese
- Do heavy physical work
- Don’t get very much exercise
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How Does it Feel?
You might have mild to intense neck and back pain—or no pain at all: [custom_blockquote style=”blue”]
- A degenerative disk in the neck can cause pain in the arm, shoulder,or neck
- A degenerative disk in the low back might cause pain in the back, buttocks, or legs
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The pain is often made worse by sitting, bending, and reaching. It may be worse first thing in the morning and after staying in any one position for a long time.
In severe cases, when DDD results in pressure on the nerves, it can lead to numbness, tingling, and even weakness in the arms or legs.
How Is It Diagnosed?
Your physical therapist will conduct a thorough evaluation that includes a review of your medical history and will use screening tools to determine the likelihood of DDD. For example, the therapist may: [custom_blockquote style=”blue”]
- Ask you very specific questions about the location and behavior of your pain, weakness, and other symptoms
- Ask you to fill out a body diagram to indicate specific areas of pain, numbness, and tingling
- Perform tests of muscle strength and sensation to determine the severity of the pressure on your nerves
- Examine your posture and observe how you walk and perform other activities
- Measure the range of motion of your spine and your arms and legs
- Use manual therapy to evaluate the mobility of the joints and muscles in your spine
- Test the strength of important muscle groups
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If you have muscle weakness and loss of sensation or very severe pain, special diagnostic tests, such as x-rays, may be needed. Physical therapists work closely with physicians and other health care providers to make certain that an accurate diagnosis is made and the appropriate treatment is provided.
Research shows that in all but the most extreme cases (usually involving muscle weakness or high levels of pain), conservative care, such as physical therapy, has better results than surgery.
After the evaluation, if your therapist suspects you have DDD and there are no major medical problems, treatment can begin right away.
Can this Injury or Condition be Prevented?
DDD usually is a natural result of aging. Research has not yet shown how to prevent it—but you can make choices that lessen its impact on your life and slow its progression. Many physical therapy clinics conduct regular educational seminars to help people in the community learn to take care of their backs and necks. These seminars often are free and provide demonstrations along with written information about exercises for the back and neck, instruction on proper lifting and sitting postures, and other tips to keep your back healthy.
Your physical therapist can help you develop a fitness program that takes into account your DDD. There are some exercises that are better than others for people with DDD, and your therapist will educate you about them. For instance: [custom_blockquote style=”blue”]
- Exercising in water can often be a great way to stay physically active when other forms of exercise are painful.
- Exercises involving lots of twisting and bending need to be avoided in some individuals.
- Weight training exercises, though very important, need to be done with proper form to avoid stress to the back and neck.
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Degeneration of the intervertebral disc, often called “degenerative disc disease” (DDD) of the spine, is a condition that can be painful and can greatly affect the quality of one’s life. While disc degeneration is a normal part of aging and for most people is not a problem, for certain individuals a degenerated disc can cause severe constant chronic pain.
With symptomatic degenerative disc disease, chronic low back pain sometimes radiates to the hips, or there is pain in the buttocks or thighs while walking; sporadic tingling or weakness through the knees may also be evident. Similar pain may be felt or may increase while sitting, bending, lifting, and twisting. Chronic neck pain can also be caused in the upper spine, with pain radiating to the shoulders, arms and hands. Neck pain may cause interrupted blood supply to the brain resulting in headaches, vertigo and worsened cognitive abilities and memory.
After an injury, some discs become painful because of inflammation. Some people have nerve endings that penetrate more deeply into the annulus fibrosus (outer layer of the disc) than others, making discs more susceptible to becoming a source of pain. The scientific communityhas the opinion that the healing process involved in the repair of trauma to the outer annulus results in the innervation of the resultant scar tissue, and subsequent pain in the disc, as these nerves become inflamed by nucleus pulposus material. Degenerative disc disease can lead to a chronic debilitating condition and can have a serious negative impact on a person’s quality of life. When pain from degenerative disc disease is severe, traditional nonoperative treatment is often ineffective.