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About Us

The Back University© was founded around one simple myth….what you don’t know cannot not hurt you.  Our entire philosophy at The Back  University©  is in complete contrast to this age-old myth! We believe knowledge is essential to putting the power and control over your health back into your hands where it belongs.

Dr. Andrew Briggs summed it up when he said, "Although we know a fair amount about the reasons for persistent pain and disability among individuals who experience lower back pain, interventions which aim to modify these factors deliver only modest changes in outcomes. This suggests that we may be overlooking an important factor which influences treatment outcomes - and that is health literacy."

Health literacy is the ability to seek, understand and utilize health information. Low levels of health literacy have been associated with poorer health outcomes, including back pain.

This understanding, coupled with the realization that over 50% of the patients referred to his physical therapy clinics were for back pain, the founder of The Back University©, Chad Elms, began to evaluate the quality and quantity of the information available to the back pain sufferer.

In looking further into this, Chad was bothered by the fact that most of the patients he was seeing for back pain had been through the revolving door of the medical system for years, getting one ineffective treatment after another. This was astounding to him considering all the treatments available for back pain. On top of that, Chad also noticed that most treatments available for back pain today are geared toward eliminating the symptom of back pain, not the cause of the pain itself. (This is also the reason he felt that most treatments for back pain are ineffective; they only address the pain itself and not the problem that caused the pain in the first place).

Unfortunately, the ultimate realization that became his driving force for founding The Back University© was that many of today’s healthcare treatments are not made based on what is best, or most effective, for the end user (the patient). Instead, they are often made by government and privately run insurance companies based on what is most cost effective for them.

 

After seeing too many people get sub-standard care (based on what their insurance would or would not pay for versus what research has shown to be most effective), Chad decided to found The Back University©. His goal was to put the treatment of back pain into the hands of the public, making it obtainable and affordable for everyone. In order to fulfill his entire vision, Chad also made sure the treatments available at The Back University© were backed by research and scientific evidence that they worked to eliminate the cause of the pain, not just the symptom of pain.

 

Today, the patients in his clinic, as well as his students at The Back University©, are treated using a comprehensive approach which draws on his years of Physical Therapy experience, as well as his Orthopedic and Manual Therapy specializations. The outcomes are evidence based from patients throughout the San Antonio community to include players for the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs, The San Antonio Ballet, Chicago White Sox players, MLS players, PGA athletes, Olympic athletes, collegiate and high school athletes, as well as numerous other patients of all ages and activity levels in the community. 

 

The Back University’s© program was developed to address the factors that caused the back pain in the first place, not just the symptoms. In doing this, we have been able to help our student’s obtain lasting relief and return to the active pain-free lifestyles they desire.

At The Back University©, we teach people how to

stop being a patient by first becoming a student...

and taking charge of their back health!

Our business is education…empowering students – changing lives!