Novel Treatment for Low Back Pain
University Communication
Author
03/01/2019
Added
231
Plays
Description
Becky Wachs researches a promising treatment for low back pain, the leading cause of disability. Her work to understand the mechanisms of undesired nerve growth into the intervertebral disc is supported by a Faculty Early Career Development Program award from the National Science Foundation.
Searchable Transcript
Toggle between list and paragraph view.
- [00:00:00.000](emotional music)
- [00:00:03.730]Majority of people experience
- [00:00:04.930]low back pain in their lifetime,
- [00:00:06.280]and the goal of our research is to try and create
- [00:00:08.000]alternative treatments for this pain.
- [00:00:11.140]One of the current conservative treatments
- [00:00:13.090]for low back pain is opioid prescriptions.
- [00:00:15.560]So, obviously the opioid epidemic is a huge problem
- [00:00:18.050]in the United States and one that we're trying to overcome.
- [00:00:21.220]So, our treatment looks to deliver
- [00:00:22.710]local therapeutics to the site of pain,
- [00:00:24.830]as opposed to a systemic treatment that's taken orally.
- [00:00:27.310]And so this would circumvent the need opioids altogether.
- [00:00:31.780]One of the major causes of low back pain
- [00:00:33.440]is you can actually get sprouting of the nerve fibers
- [00:00:35.580]that are adjacent to the disc into the disc itself.
- [00:00:38.530]And so when these painful nerve fibers sprout into the disc,
- [00:00:41.010]they can actually cause low back pain.
- [00:00:42.940]And so our research seeks to treat this pain
- [00:00:45.450]by understanding what causes this growth into the disc
- [00:00:48.060]and how can we prevent it and reverse it.
- [00:00:52.170]Our approach is unique in that it uses materials
- [00:00:54.530]that are neuro-inhibitory or block nerve growth,
- [00:00:57.390]in addition to drugs that cause nerves to die back.
- [00:00:59.820]And so, by this combinatorial approach,
- [00:01:01.480]if we have nerve fibers that have sprouted into the disc,
- [00:01:04.140]we can treat them with our therapy,
- [00:01:05.910]and it will cause the nerves to die back
- [00:01:07.570]and prevent regrowth, thereby eliminating the pain.
- [00:01:10.097](upbeat music)
- [00:01:12.750]The material we're using has actually been identified
- [00:01:15.020]in spinal cord injury to prevent nerve growth.
- [00:01:17.210]So, it's a material that we're sort of repurposing
- [00:01:19.410]for use in the disc to prevent nerve growth
- [00:01:21.260]in an area that shouldn't have nerves.
- [00:01:23.730]So, this is a cluster of sensory neurons.
- [00:01:26.690]It's really important to share this research
- [00:01:28.170]with the local community around us.
- [00:01:29.680]And so, two ways that we're doing this is we're partnering
- [00:01:32.050]with the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute
- [00:01:33.860]to create some coursework
- [00:01:34.960]around low back pain and orthopedics.
- [00:01:36.670]And we're also incorporating communication
- [00:01:39.130]of science into our classroom.
- [00:01:40.430]And to do this, we're actually using TED talks
- [00:01:42.230]to enable the students to learn how to communicate
- [00:01:44.430]their science to broad audiences.
- [00:01:46.240]It's cool to work on a project like this in our lab,
- [00:01:48.080]because the work that we're doing on our bench top
- [00:01:50.260]could potentially change someone's life forever.
- [00:01:52.490]So, when a patient is diagnosed
- [00:01:53.730]with this type of low back pain,
- [00:01:55.230]they'll be able to have a minimally-invasive surgery
- [00:01:57.370]that will deliver this drug and therapeutic
- [00:01:59.140]to cause nerve die back and prevent regrowth,
- [00:02:01.440]thereby reducing their pain.
- [00:02:03.600]With support from National Science Foundation,
- [00:02:05.210]we're really excited to do this research
- [00:02:06.760]that has the potential to impact
- [00:02:07.990]millions of patients around the world.
The screen size you are trying to search captions on is too small!
You can always jump over to MediaHub and check it out there.
Log in to post comments
Embed
Copy the following code into your page
HTML
<div style="padding-top: 56.25%; overflow: hidden; position:relative; -webkit-box-flex: 1; flex-grow: 1;"> <iframe style="bottom: 0; left: 0; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; border: 0; height: 100%; width: 100%;" src="https://mediahub.unl.edu/media/10725?format=iframe&autoplay=0" title="Video Player: Novel Treatment for Low Back Pain" allowfullscreen ></iframe> </div>
Comments
0 Comments