Kids Can Have Back Problems Too

By Shawn D. Keegan, DC

Children are active most of the time they don't sit still. Because of all of that activity, it is important to see a health care professional for routine physical examinations of your child's developing spine.

Kids are always on the move; running instead of walking, jumping over things, climbing, falling, and bouncing. Many of our kids are playing organized sports as well. I have young patients who are playing on multiple teams during the same season or playing the same sport all four seasons of the year.

Research has shown that with greater activity, especially organized sports, the risk of injury is also greater. There are more collisions, falls, and opportunities for injury. Even those not in sports are still falling, tripping and bumping into things.

These knocks can have a detrimental impact on a child's developing spine. These knocks could result in a noticeable injury, or simply a subtle change in spinal biomechanics, but both cause spinal stress.

Spinal stress is what can affect spinal nerve function. Initially there may be few symptoms of spinal stress or nothing obvious or painful about it. Most of the time the child won't even notice a thing. But, normal movement patterns change, affecting their muscular and skeletal development. Over time, left uncorrected, these subtle injuries can have long-term effects on their spinal nerve function.

Spinal nerve function depends on mechanical integrity of the spine itself. If spinal muscles and ligaments are inflamed or irritated, spinal nerve function is compromised to a greater or lesser extent. In a child, the short and long-term results may include muscle pain and stiffness, loss of full range of motion in the neck or lower back, frequent colds, headaches, gastrointestinal problems, allergies, or asthma.

Fortunately children are resilient. A quick spinal examination by a licensed health care professional can identify areas of spinal stress. With proper treatment, results can happen quickly. Often it takes drastically less care to restore function in children as compared to adults.

The goal of good healthcare is to allow one to thrive. Prevention is the quickest, easiest and most cost effective way to do just that. It is much easier to prevent illness and injury than to restore health after illness or injury.