LisaHoffmanandAnnette RainvilleoftheScrippsHoward News Service have reported, inanextremelymovingarticle, that nearly 900 Americanchildrenhave lostaparent to the war in Iraq.
Strength training, aerobic exercise and stretching can prevent muscles from withering, reduce disability and even reduce pain intensity by 10% to 50%, Rainville says.
"Chronic pain is in many ways a central sensitization of pain producing pathways in the brain, " says James Rainville, a Harvard prof and chief of physical rehabilitation at New England Baptist Hospital.
In a recent 84-patient study published in the Spine Journal, Rainville found half of the patients in the study on narcotics were able to stop taking them after six weeks of exercise therapy.