Physical Therapy for Back Pain

Ever since the fifth grade, I have wanted to become a physical therapist. It was not until I began doing my observation hours that I got a true understanding of what a physical therapist actually does and the wide variety of patients that they see. It was not until my Physics course that I understood how much physics is involved with physical therapy. Forces, torques, vectors, energies, rotational and linear motions all are very important when it comes to the human body and more importantly the rehabilitation of the human body. The article "Back Pain Overview: Exercise and Physical Therapy" from The New York Times, explains the benefits of physical therapy and exercises that can be used for rehab of back pain.
Although some are susceptible about physical therapy, a study has shown that people who plan therir own exercise program do worse than those under the supervision of a physical therapist or doctor. It is usually necessary to have a physical therapist if pain has persisted for three to four weeks. The cause of the back pain is often from incorrect movements and/ or long-term high-impact movements. These movements could be caused by stresses from activities such as football, golf, weight lifting or everyday activities. Physical therapy is used to train the patient the proper movements and the strengthening and flexibility of the back in this case.
When discussing the exercises for acute back pain, it is recommended not to put the lower back under pressure. Leg curls and lifts can apply this undesirable pressure due to the forces of the weight. Pressure is a scalar quantity, and in this case is caused by forces.



The force of the weight of the lifting equipment as it is shown in the picture causes undesirable pressure on the lower back. Forces are pushes or pulls and are known as vectors because they have a magnitude as well as a direction. The recommended exercises when there is acute back pain are swimming, biking, or walking. These types of exercises are low-impact meaning that the forces on the lower back have a small magnitude. Low-impact is in reference to the amount of forces on the muscles in the lower back have. Muscles are connected to two bones through their tendon attachments, and the lower back pain is caused by the use of the weakened muscles. Improper movements are due to the direction of the forces overtime, while the long-term high-impact movements is due to both the direction and magnitude of the forces.



For chronic back pain, exercise is very important. Exercise can increase flexibility, endurance, and muscle strength. Once again, low-impact aerobic exercises are the most beneficial as to not overstrain the back. Biking, swimming, and walking allow for proper forces that have sufficient magnitudes and correct directions so that the muscles can recover from injury and gain flexibility.

This is a nice video that describes the physical therapy aspect of lower back pain more. It includes a new technique called GPR, that is used for lower back pain. Only need to watch it to 1:45 minutes.



This second video is extremely informative, and includes a slide show with a person explaining the basic anatomy of the back, the types of methods a person with back pain can use to decrease the pain, as well as video clips of the exercises and how to do them properly. I would say that this video is the best representation of multiple modes of representation, and I can say that it is very helpful for those who are visual or audio learners.


Below are two websites that are very beneficial for anyone who is suffering from either acute or chronic back pain. TThey give a lot of useful information about lower back posture as well.

http://posture-exercises.blogspot.com/

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/backpain/detail_backpain.htm

Giant Magnetoresistance Effect Responsible for iPod

Can you imagine a world with out iPod's? As the world becomes more and more technogically advanced and dependent, it would be hard to think of a world without iPod's and mp3 players.



The interesting thing is that without a relatively new finding by two physicists, this could have been a possibility. Albert Fert and Peter Grunberg received the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work in the discovery on how to influence thin layers of atoms magnetic and electrical properties so that they can store large amounts of data on miniature discs.


Albert Fret


Peter Grunberg

iPods and mp3 players record data such as music, videos, and games as magnetic combination of zeros and ones, which is scanned by a small head and converted to electrical signals. Together Fert and Grunberg discovered an effect that Fert termed as giant magnetoresistance. Giant magnetoresistance allows for large changes in electrical resistance with only miniscule changes in magnetic field. Because the data is converted to electrical signals, and giant magnetoresistance can increase electrical resistance, more data can be put onto the iPod or mp3 player.

The link below is from a website designed by IBM. It is a animated video that breaks down the basics of the hard drive used to copy data. It includes the analysis of the small head that converts the scanned data to electrical signals.


This link is completely designated for the giant magnetoresistance effect. Within the link, there are eight videos with descriptions explaining the effect. It is very helpful in understanding the effect.


The head, which scans the data to convert it to electrical signals, is made up of layers of magnetic iron and nonmagnetic chromium. Fret and Grunberg found that by minimizing the thickness of these layers, there can be an enhanced sensitivity to magnetic fields. This enhanced sensitivity to magnetic fields, is the giant magnetoresistance effect.

I am currently planning on becoming a physical therapist. I have observed many physical therapists who have said that the biggest problem in physical therapy is getting their injured patients to do the proper exercises and to stay active despite their injury. From my own experience, having music on in the weight room and listening to my iPod while running motivates me to keep working hard. I believe that with the discovery of the giant magnetoresistance effect, it is now easier for injured patients to workout and stay active because they can go on walks with their iPods and stay motivated to become healtier and prevent future injury.

This is a link to a website that explains how listening to music makes it easier to exercise longer.


Take care!
Ryan

The Physics Football Collision

The Collision
One may think that 1,800 pounds of force exerted on the human body is enough to severely injure of kill; however that is the amount of force exerted on the bodies of two football players colliding. Staring with the most basic physics, the mechanics of the collision between the two players is described by the definition of a contact force, which is a force when two objects touch each other. Because the forces of the players not only have magnitudes but directions as well, the forces are considered vectors. This brings the discussion to the net forces. Because there is more than one force acting on the system between the two players and the football, the net force is a vector sum of all the forces acting on the system. The interesting thing about the collision in this story is that it involves three different objects, all of which have different force vectors. According to Newton's Second Law, the force vector is equal to the acceleration vector multiplied by mass of the object. The acceleration vector is the rate of change if the velocity and velocity is the rate of change of the position. This means that if the two players were traveling and the same speed and in this case, at 20 feet per second, the players would collide and both travel in the opposite direction at about 10 feet per second, this is without the consideration of the football whose small mass contributed slim to no effect on the collision.

As Fountain wrote in the article, "Momentum may have been conserved, but pride was not." Momentum is the change is collisions velocities, and thus is also described as being the difficulty of stopping a moving object. The momentum of the players are very similar, and the fact that it was found that about 1,800 pounds of force were exerted on the football players brings up a interesting question of how football players withstand such extreme forces. The answer: football pads and helmet. The creation of proper football equipment has enabled football players along with other athletes in contact sports to withstand these collisions with minimal injury or pain. The football pads cause the force of the collision to be spread over a longer period of time so that there is a smaller impulse on the body. The force is spread over a greater time to make the change in momentum much smaller. The reason why the ball was projected from the collision site towards the sidelines is because the vector force that it had during the collision was very minimal to the vector forces of the two players. The external forces of the players caused the momentum of the football to change and move away from the system at a much greater rate than the two players.

There are different types of collisions. The collision in which the football players were involved in was an elastic collision because the two players bounced off each other after colliding. The bouncy aspect is caused by the elasticity of the collision. Elastic energy is energy that is stored in a springy object when it is slightly deformed during a collision. Because there was no change in the total kinetic energy of the collision, momentum was conserved. Because the collision has two dimensions, both the x-component and y-component momentums need to be considered.

The Spiral
The trajectory is the term used to describe the path of an object. The projectile is the object and in this case is the football. The trajectory of the football during a throw is in the shape of a parabola as it leaves the quarterbacks hand to the receiver's hands. The angle of elevation is the angle of the initial velocity, and the force that is most exerted on the ball while it is in the air is gravity. The velocity of the football in the y-direction is initially high, but as it is projected into the air, the velocity constantly decreases until it reaches the top of the parabola and begins to drop. The velocity in the x-direction is constant because it is in a constant state of motion in the forward direction. When the football is not in a tight spiral, then the football has more air resistance. This causes the velocity of in the y-direction to decrease much more rapidly and in turn the football does not go as far.

There are several pictures that represent the type of collision that was discussed in the article. The first photo is a picture of a Denver Bronco's defender after hitting the Green Bay Packer's reciever and shows the ball being projected away from the collision. In this collision, the force of the Bronco's player was greater than the Packer's player becuase the Packer's player looks like he is being moved backward more so than the Bronco's player.



The next photo is a big time collision as well. You know when the helmet comes off and the football is sent flying that the collision had a lot of force involved.



Dr. Timothy Gay actually has his own website, and more importantly to this blog, he has a link to Football Physics. The link is shown below. Within this link, there are several videos that can be watched, along with class discussions about the physics of football.

http://physics.unl.edu/outreach/football.html



Have a good one!
Ryan

"The Origins of the Universe: A Crash Course" by Brian Greene.

Eight billion dollars spent on a machine that could possibly create a black hole that has the potential to engulf the entire Earth. One may ask themselves, what has such potential, the answer: the Large Hadron Collider. The collider is located 300 feet below France and is a circular 17-mile track. When on, trillions of protons reach speeds around the speed of light, and partake in about 500 million head on collisions. These head on collisions at such high speeds causes a large amount of energy released. This also could cause (and this is the purpose of the collider) the creation of new particles that have never been known. These particles include, Higgs, Supersymmetric, and Transdimensional Particles, as well as the uncertain side effects of Micro Black Holes.
After presenting a brief description of the particles, I am going to explain some of the uncertainties about these particles, and see if the 8 billion dollars spent on this project is scientifically worth it. The Higgs Particles are the particles that make up a so-called molasses field that is responsible for mass. The collisions in the collider are thought of to be able to create these particles from the collisions and thus would be used for the completion of he standard model of the Higgs Particles. This would be a great advancement in science and could lead to many new and great discoveries, and thus I believe that this is a good start to the rationale of the money spent.
The second particle is the Supersymmetric Particle. Although they have never actually been detected, it is said that they the collider will have the power to create these particles that would be described as a monumental achievement that takes us beyond Einstein's theory, and catapulting us to a deeper link between nature's forces and particles of matter, so the article says.
The third particle is the Transdimensional Particle. Einstein always believed that there was a fourth dimension of space that was unable to be detected, and the collider is said to possibly hold the power to find that fourth dimension. This would be done by the debris of the protons colliding into one another being 'thrown' out of the normal dimensions of space and into an unknown one. If this were discovered, Greene says, "It would rank as one of the greatest upheavals in our understanding of the universe."
The side effects that could occur include micro black holes. This is a massive astrophysical body with enormous gravitational fields that in size, is comparable to the size of an orange shrunken down a billionth3 times. This is bad because it could engulf part of the country of France, all of Europe, or the entire Earth. Although this is extremely unlikely, it could happen.
Even though I have said that all of the particles provide a great deal of information that would be very beneficial to science, there is really no certainty that any of this is going to work, let alone the extreme negatives that could occur. Hopefully, there will be extreme caution in the use of the Large Hadron Collider, and there will be some amazing discoveries that will launch modern day science beyond the level that it is and especially beyond the level that Einstein ever could have imagined.