Back to School Backpack Safety Tips!

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:

Choose right - the backpack should fit between the child’s shoulder blades and waist.
Pack right - The maximum weight of the loaded backpack should not exceed 10 -15 percent of a child’s body weight, so pack wisely.
Lift right - Face the backpack, bend at the knees, lift the backpack with the legs and apply one shoulder strap and then the other.
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!

Comments

Your posture affects your mood

Poor Posture, Poor Mood Whenever you’re sitting at a computer, be conscious of your posture and keep your feet evenly planted on the ground. As many people are finding themselves spending more time sitting slumped behind a screen or standing on their feet for hours on end without a break, paying attention to your posture is more important than ever. If you’ve never thought much about whether you’re sitting or standing stance is doing harm to your health, you might want to start before you find yourself in a bad mood. Whenever you’re sitting at a computer, be conscious of your posture and keep your feet evenly planted on the ground. Each time we lean forward 60 degrees, the stress placed on our neck is increased dramatically. This can lead to numbness, pain, pinched nerves and improper breathing—none of which are good for your mood! Stress on your neck can also lead to tense upper back and shoulder muscles, resulting in headaches which can be very frequent for some with po

Tips on Designing a Healthier Workspace

What’s Bringing on Your Back Pain?

Struggling to find the source of your back pain? Schedule a visit with our practice. Many people with sudden, acute back pain think, “But gosh, I didn’t even do anything!” What many folks don’t know, or understand, is that it’s not always a case of what you did five minutes ago, or what you did yesterday, or even what you did last week that’s causing the current problem; it’s more a case of “the straw that broke the camel’s back,” no pun intended! Discovering the Cause Sometimes it’s chronic stress that wreaks havoc on your nervous system and finally causes your back to “go out” or a “pain in your neck” because of the strain of carrying the weight of all that stress on your back and neck. Let’s use an everyday example to demonstrate. You go to the local eatery and put your purchase on your bank debit card. All of a sudden, bells and whistles go off because you didn’t have enough money in your account to cover that charge. It’s not this charge that “broke the bank,” it’s all t

Diamond Chiropractic

Search This Blog