Kemper Tailbone Injury Foundation Commitment to Data Collection
Global Network
Dr. Kemper Foundation (KTIF) continues to work toward the development of both a global network of physicians and therapists specializing in diagnosis and treatment of the S/C syndrome and an online database to enable these care providers to easily upload simple intake and outcome data sets.
These easy to enter data, documenting vital before and after objective clinical signs, will eventually enable large scale meta-analysis needed to build an increasingly reliable understanding of the orthopedic, neurologic, obstetric and pain conditions stemming directly or indirectly from the SacroCoccygeal syndrome.
While efforts are made to expand institutional recognition of the SacroCoccygeal syndrome, as a common and serious mechanical pathogen, KTIF continues its work offering continuing education and the fund raising necessary to help advance coccyx dysfunction from its current role as a "nuisance" to what promised to be an important neuromechanical pathogen.
Donations will be gratefully accepted beginning in the fall of 2011.
Summary of research
Along with Dr. Jim Wooley, we first announced our hypothesis regarding coccyx-induced cord and dural tension in a retrospective study published in the Journal of Orthopedic Medicine. In that 1998 paper we suggested that there was a clear mechanism whereby the cord and dural sheath were prone to axial tension due to their attachments at the posterior surface of the coccyx and the degree to which the coccyx could displace or become immobile. You can see how the coccyx can hypothetically create an excessive downward tug on the conus and thecal sac on the DVD animation included in your information package.
We first observed evidence of this dural tug affect during our 2001 Prospective cohort...a study of chronic low back pain patients where, among other factors, we looked at the position of the tip of the conus medullaris with MRI before and after their coccyges were treated. While the study was not blinded or randomized, changes in conus position trended upward and centrally in the post procedure images of the experimental group subjects who received 3 procedures under light anesthesia, at 1 week intervals, suggesting that the procedure eased chronic cord tension.
While more research is needed to test our hypothesis we continue to consistently see clinical evidence of this cord tension in patients with hypomobile coccyges and improved outcomes in direct proportion to the degree coccygeal function can be restored. The procedure takes less than five minutes and is in line with Swedish neurosurgeon Dr. Alf Breig’s assertion that neural tissue is sensitive to tension as well as compression.
Regardless of the actual degree of cord tension that may exist as a result of coccygeal trauma, the S/C syndrome’s clinical presentation of chronic pain, loss of lumbopelvic flexibility and weakness is clear. And with the high incidence of pelvic floor trauma associated with board and contact sports, as well as sedentary life styles, we believe that assessing coccygeal function is a long overdue and valuable tool for the pain manager or spine physician and surgeon to address, what could be approaching, epidemic levels of back and pelvic pain in populations of patients yet to be tested for S/C involvement.