People who fear aggravating a backache will change the way they move to prevent more pain, a new study finds. But doing so may set the stage for further injury, researchers warn.

Back pain is the number one cause of worker-compensation complaints, second only to the common cold in causing lost workdays. Consequently, employers and regulators have pushed training programs to teach specific lifting methods, and some recommend or require the use of assistive devices such as hoists for hospital workers.

When it comes to low back pain, physicians generally advise exhausting nonsurgical options before resorting to surgery. But a new study shows that for degenerative spondylolisthesis with spinal stenosis, surgery provides significantly better results than nonsurgical alternatives.

The researchers participated in the Agency's Berlin Bed-Rest Study, monitoring 20 healthy, young men who spent 56 days lying in bed. Lead researcher Dr Daniel Belavy said prolonged inactivity shrunk the deep muscles that protected the mens' backs.

A new literature review finds evidence that patients with chronic neck pain enrolled in clinical trials reported significant improvement following chiropractic spinal manipulation, according to a March/April 2007 report in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics (JMPT).