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Mechanical Low Back Pain

The McKenzie Approach and Recommended Readings

The McKenzie approach to treatment emphasizes the following concepts:

1. Education of the patient to make him self-reliant; as independent of the practitioner as possible. Therapists' hands-on-techniques are judiciously applied only after self treatment has ceased to produce improvement in the patient's condition.
2. Close, nearly continuous interaction of the therapist and patient during treatment sessions to monitor the effects of movement and position on symptoms. When, during testing or treatment, are symptoms experienced and how is their intensity and location affected? The phenomena of "centralization of symptoms" is especially important here as a barometer of treatment success.
3. The use of movement and position to treat soft tissue dysfunction and to reduce spinal segment derangement.
4. The significance of posture in regard to the production of symptoms and pathology, and its importance in treating all mechanical LBP.
5. Preparing the patient for full participation in the activities of life following successful treatment.

Recommended Readings by Robin A. McKenzie

1. The lumbar spine: Mechanical diagnosis and therapy. Waikanae, New Zealand: Spinal Publications; 1989.
2. The cervical and thoracic spine: Mechanical diagnosis and therapy. Waikanae, New Zealand: Spinal Publications; 1990.
3. Treat your own back. 7th ed. Waikanae, New Zealand: Spinal Publications. paper.
4. Treat your own neck. 3rd ed. Waikanae, New Zealand: Spinal Publications; 1997.