Back care and hiking (Full Version)

All Forums >> [RehabEdge Forum] >> Open Forum

Message

---

Becca Redmond -> Back care and hiking (April 30, 2000 9:55:00 AM) I am a new qualified physiotherapist. I went walking/hiking the other week with some teenagers in the Lake district. Whilst i was only there as adult supervision i was observing the techniques that the hikers were using to handle their rucksacks. My concerns were that they were without knowing putting their spines into positions of great stress, very bad posture. Equally when walking with their 'heavy' packs their posture changed potentially increasing their vulnerablity to injury. Just as a casual request i was wondering if anybody had any thoughts on this as far as moving and handling or general back care is concerned. The hiking leader, although very qualified, had not considered mentioning back care in her 'risk assessment' of the daily walks. Each walker was carrying full equipment, probably up to 30-35lbs. How are we to know how much weight is too much weight?? What are the guidelines? Don't know if any body else feels that some general advice on handling of heavy rucksacks should be included in such school type trips?? Or whether i am being alittle to overprotective. I would appreciate it if any body has any thoughts on this. Thanks

---

Andrew M. Ball, MS, PT -> Re: Back care and hiking (April 30, 2000 1:33:00 PM) Becca, It may help to aid the discussion if someone (hopefully you) would be so kind as to do a current literature search. Contrary to popular physical thearpy opinion, I'm not sure that the literature supports the "poor posture yields musculoskeletal philosophy." Specifically, I'm not sure that anything has been done looking at backback loading. I do however seem to remember once upon a time reading about an article about kids using backbacks and what not. Although increased differential loading was noted, I don't recall the article finding that this was correlated with a higher incidence of injury. In any event. A MEDLINE search would be a great place for us to get started, and we all eagerly await the results of your search. Drew

---

Dana D -> Re: Back care and hiking (May 1, 2000 3:40:00 AM) I remember reading an article in the Advance regarding Back Pack Safety for children. It must of been around August or Sept. of 1999, just before school started. It talked about how heavy the back pack should be, and tips on how to prevent injury. I looked up Back Pack safety on the internet and found the author of the article and tips.... I gave them to the parents of my children... just for a "FYI"....even for other children in their family.

---

Dana D -> Re: Back care and hiking (May 1, 2000 3:45:00 AM) [URL=http://www.backpacksafe.com/]http://www.backpacksafe.com/[/URL] They didn't offer any concrete statistical evidence regarding any research conducted... but it was an interesting site. Maybe you could email them and they could provide you with further information.

---

Page: [1]

Forum Software © ASPPlayground.NET Advanced Edition 2.5.5 Unicode

0.078