Culture

Publisher: Dunmore Publishing
3/5

My first introduction to the McKenzie Method was when I hurt my back and upper leg a year ago while running. I have had recurrent back pain for years, but serious training tipped it into an intolerable degree of pain. The physiotherapy clinic talked me through a whole range of exercises and suggested I buy a McKenzie lumbar support for my office chair.
I then went out and bought his book Treat Your Own Back and after a few weeks of self-care, have been pain-free ever since. Reading McKenzie’s autobiography, I find that it was a hard road getting anyone in the physiotherapy or medical profession to accept his radical methods for what is often considered miraculous recovery from chronic back pain.  
An Otago graduate of our Physiotherapy school, Robin originally set up shop in Wellington and went on to establish what is known as the McKenzie Institute in over 29 countries. His is an amazing success story – a humble Kiwi taking on the world through perseverance and self-belief.  This is a recommended read for anyone who wants to understand the hardships and challenges of self-employment as well as self-promotion.  
 
Robin has been awarded an OBE and is internationally recognised for his work. Fortunately, he’s celebrated here, too. There is a photograph in the book of Robin with Graeme Fogelberg, Otago’s Vice-Chancellor at the time: it depicts the successful joint venture agreement to have Certified McKenzie Clinics in the Physiotherapy school in Dunedin and Wellington. Since then, we have used to McKenzie concepts of treatment to help patients treat themselves. With the McKenzie Method of Mechanical Diagnosis and Therapy, people who’ve been suffering from back and neck pain for years – including myself – can now lead normal, fulfilling lives.
 
This is an inspirational book and one that makes me proud of the University of Otago.