NEW YORK, June 24 /PRNewswire/ -- Many Americans feel that today's healthcare system is failing them. Increased costs resulting in higher insurance premiums have made it more difficult to afford health insurance. The pivotal issue not being addressed, says renowned pain resolution expert and physical therapist Mitchell Yass, is whether the costs being incurred are efficacious and necessary -- Yass staunchly believes they are not -- and what healthcare segment seems to be driving this rise in cost. Increased costs, Yass maintains, can be summed up in one word: pain. Alarmingly, pain is rarely diagnosed and treated properly, resulting in millions of unnecessary surgeries and the overuse of prescription drugs. After recognizing vital flaws in pain detection and resolution practices in the U.S., Yass developed his revolutionary method, the subject of his book, Overpower Pain: The Strength Training Program that Stops Pain without Drugs or Surgery, and has detected and resolved pain in thousands of patients. He has made it his mission to educate others on correctly assessing and eliminating pain. While structural abnormalities are generally believed to be the root of pain, Yass has proven that pain is nearly always the result of muscular imbalance or weakness. Understanding this, Yass contends, is the road to a more effective and affordable healthcare system and will drastically improve the lives of millions.
To understand Yass' theory, one must first review how the system currently works. The average individual enters the healthcare system when experiencing loss of function or pain. Typically, an x-ray or MRI is executed and a structural abnormality such as a herniated disc or arthritis is identified. This becomes the basis for a diagnosis and subsequent treatment. The problem, Yass explains, is that none of the steps generally taken -- from diagnostic testing, to the prescription of medicine to the implementation of pain-minimizing therapies -- seek to identify the cause of pain. The testing only identifies a structural abnormality that is assumed to be the root of the pain. However, extensive studies have proven that as many individuals not in pain have the same structural abnormalities found on screening exams of those with pain. Thus, there is little correlation between diagnostic findings and symptoms, including pain.
Yass discovered through working with countless patients unable to resolve pain through medication or surgery, that pain is nearly always the result of muscular imbalance or weakness, not structural abnormalities. He resolves pain through strength training and has a 95% success rate. Yass aims to dispel common misconceptions such as rest being the answer to resolving a dysfunction. The bottom line is that, Yass says, "strength equals function."
Yass is determined to get people back to their pain-free, normal function, which he believes will eliminate billions of dollars of unnecessary expenses including diagnostic tests, unnecessary surgeries, drug reliance and excessive physician visits. He's hopeful that this will lead to affordable healthcare insurance for all.
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