“AUSTRALIA, 11 February 2016 – A study by AbbVie launched today reveals the often devastating impact of men’s health-related sleep disorders on the nation’s relationships, with 79% of Aussie women surveyed believing their partner’s poor sleep was due to a medical issue.
Topping the charts, second only to snoring/sleep apnea, was back pain - which over a third (34%) of the 1000 respondents cited as the source of their partners’ sleep disruption. Depression came in third, which 20% of respondents identified as the cause of sleep disturbance.”
The survey has been released as part of the ‘Don’t Turn Your Back On It’ campaign.
I’d written about the pilot program previously - Read "The Back Cave".
The Don’t Turn Your Back On It campaign aims to encourage the many, many people with unresolved back pain to seek medical help earlier and to take a simple online symptom screener: http://dontturnyourbackonit.com.au/symptom-screener/, to find out if their back pain could be a sign of something more serious.
Namely, inflammatory back pain and possible, spondyloarthritis and ankylosing spondylitis.
The survey found that four out of five women reported that their partner’s poor sleep was a strain on their relationship with the top three reasons for relationship issues being increased irritability (43%), a less fun-loving partner (38%), and a lower willingness to help with housework (30%).
Men, with unresolved back pain, we believe, typically suffer in silence but of course, the health of their relationships may suffer with impact on family life.
While a survey is of course not a substitute for hard science, it’s of interest and sometimes, the findings can help capture the attention of media in ways that hard science cannot.
Highlighting back pain in the bedroom will hopefully get some talking and some media coverage.
The elephant is actually the unresolved back pain and the poor awareness that spondyloarthritis & ankylosing spondylitis are causes that can be well managed.
Let’s not turn our back on this. Help get the elephant into view.
Please share this post and let people you know with unresolved back pain check out the simple symptom screener:
http://dontturnyourbackonit.com.au/symptom-screener/
