Study Shows Innovative Use of Sound has Potential to Relieve Back Pain
Research reveals frequency biomarkers to support the relief of back discomfort for persons reporting back pain due to trauma and fatigue.
(PRWEB) July 13, 2004 -- Hundreds of trials conducted over the last four
years have culminated in the discovery of two sets of sequenced frequencies that
support the ability to significantly decrease, and in a number of cases,
completely alleviate pain for research subjects reporting various degrees of
back pain.
The idea of frequency oscillation is not a new concept of pain
relief as evidenced by devices such as the TENS unit which attaches to the body
and was designed to block pain signals. What is different about this research is
the fact that the frequencies are delivered ambiently (through the air) via a
speaker as a form of entrainment to engage the brain to create the signals
required for the pain relief. Headphones can be used but subjects reported pain
relief to be five times more effective and faster if the frequencies are
provided through a speaker.
"It is exciting to find that the brain can be
entrained to provide signals to muscles in such a way that the body can relieve
its own pain - not only back pain but other muscles as well can be influenced.
I've experienced the pain relief for myself," states Barbara McNeil, a Marietta,
Ohio Chiropractor. Although these results may not be representative for everyone
they certainly seem to be consistent if the appropriate frequencies can be
identified and applied.
During tone trials, the experimental frequency
sequences were delivered via a tone box and speaker for a time period of three
to five minutes. Subjects quickly began referring to the tone box as “The Little
Back Box” and the name has stuck. Many of the participants were confounded, yet
pleased, by the fact that listening to a sound could provide pain relief that
felt so natural that many of them did not attribute the relief to the Back Box.
Pain measurements included trauma as well as those reporting discomfort from
everyday muscle stress.
Attempts were made to include a set of control
frequencies during the double blind phase of the project but it was not hard to
ascertain which subjects had the valid sounds because a subject would often be
reluctant to give up the tone box even though they had only experienced the
sounds, sometimes, for only a few minutes. “I’ve had people threaten me if I
took the tone box away,” one of the lab assistants laughingly added when she was
asked about the controls that were built into the research protocols.
It
has been shown that the two sets of sequenced tones have the ability to entrain
the heart and brain rhythms to work in synchronization with one other. The
Heart/Math Institute in Colorado has demonstrated that when the heart and brain
work in synchronization, healing is often the result.
As testing
continues a specialized computer program is being developed that may be able to
predict back stress before actual pain manifests. There is potential to relieve
not only back stress but economic stress due to loss wages, rehabilitation
payments and medical costs associated with back pain.
This biofeedback
method, which may soon be available to the public, would fall under the category
of integrative and complementary medicine. The Journal of Manipulative
Physiology Therapy reported in February, 1999 that experts favor alternative
modalities of treatment for uncomplicated acute and chronic back pain.
The Yale Medical Group specializing in back pain estimates that 70-85%
of all people have had back pain at some time in their lifetime. Often experts
do not agree concerning the exact cause and diagnosis of back pain. Dr. James
Weinstein, head of orthopedics at Dartmouth Medical School and Dr. Richard Deyo,
professor of medicine at the University of Washington state that 85% of patients
with lower back pain often cannot be given a precise diagnosis. Non specific
terms such as strain, sprain or degenerative processes are commonly used to
describe back pain.
Pain experts and economists do agree that back pain
is the most frequent cause of activity limitation and lost work hours. Various
sources estimate as many as 100 million working days are lost each year due to
back pain. Direct medical costs to treat individuals with back pain accounts for
$26 billion a year or 2.5% of the total health care bill in America.
As
the study longitudinally unfolds, the implications of biofrequency markers
continue to expand into unpredicted venues. “We were astonished when degenerated
discs began to restructure themselves after a patient started using the tones,”
declared Liz Lonergan, RN and founder of the Body and Soul Health Clinic in
Chicago. “What this one case revealed is the ability of the frequencies to
assist the body to restructure discs that had been previously fused and were
irreparably degenerating now, five years later. Investigating these biomarkers
for back pain will expand the options that medical professionals have to offer
to those who present with complaints of unremitting back pain. In some cases,
I’ve begun to use the frequencies as a preventive measure when back pain seems
to be on the horizon for any of my patients. Indications are that generic
frequencies exist but for someone with a specific or surgery related issue, a
set of unambiguous tones can be created. We use frequency oscillations with
patients with respiratory failure, kidney stones, heel spurs and the clearance
of mucous: It is only logical that these “Designer Frequency” options will be
incorporated as part of the growing field of frequency based medicine,”
concludes Lonergan.
“The body’s mechanism for the relief of back pain
through the use of sequenced oscillating frequencies is not yet fully
understood” states Sharry Edwards, M.Ed., long term director of the project,
“but people who are no longer in pain don’t care how or why the technique works.
They only care that it works.”
Difficulties with the way the experiments
were originally designed surfaced when there was an attempt made to include
subjects who were receiving disability payments due to back pain. One such study
was conducted by Kathleen Nagy in cooperation with a State of Massachusetts
insurance company that was interested in getting people back to work and off the
disability payroll. “A participant in the study was adamant that nothing would
help her pain,” reported Nagy. Even though it was obvious to Nagy that mobility
had increased and the pain had significantly subsided, the subject insisted that
no pain relief had occurred. The only conclusion that could be drawn was the
secondary monetary gain that was involved with reporting no pain relief.
After test marketing, The Little Back Box will join other products being
developed for public release by Sound Health Inc, a research facility located in
southern Ohio.
About Sound Health: Employing fundamental mathematical
concepts, uniquely expressed, Sound Health Inc. uses biological pathways
expressed as frequency relationships to distinguish novel biometric
associations. The facility is dedicated to the study of low frequency sound and
its influence on biological function and terrain.
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/7/prweb140625.htm