The Walled Lake Chiropractor to see - Chiropractor Walled Lake

Backpack Safety

Be sure your child uses both straps to balance the load.

Most school-aged children tote backpacks as the preferred means to transport their books and supplies. Chiropractors around the country are seeing younger and younger patients complaining of back and shoulder pain. Is there a connection?

Backpack Safety International™, an educational program that promotes and delivers guidelines for safe backpack use to administrators, teachers, parents and children, advocates the following four steps to ensure safe backpack use:

  1. Choose right - the backpack should fit between the child’s shoulder blades and waist.

  2. Pack right - The maximum weight of the loaded backpack should not exceed 10 -15 percent of a child’s body weight, so pack wisely.

  3. Lift right - Face the backpack, bend at the knees, lift the backpack with the legs and apply one shoulder strap and then the other.

  4. Wear right – use both shoulder straps and make them snug, but not too tight. Use the waist strap, if available.

Increased awareness and education on this issue seems to be paying off. The U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission reported that the number of emergency room visits related to backpack injuries is down from 7,860 to 7,649 over a one-year period.  Previously, the number of cases had risen significantly each year. Increased awareness of this issue may actually be paying off!

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Doc Asks some important questions of interest to Walled Lake residents - Chiropractor Walled Lake Doc Asks...

Will chiropractic adjustments make my spine too loose?
No. Only the spinal joints that are fixated and "locked up" receive attention. The occasional spinal joint that moves too much is passed over so weakened muscles and ligaments can strengthen and heal.
Why is a "slipped disc" unlikely?
Separating each spinal vertebra is a disc. Its fibrous outer ring holds in a jelly-like material. Because of the way a disc attaches to the spinal bones above and below it, it can't actually "slip." However, a disc can bulge, tear, herniate, thin and collapse. But it can't slip.