Foreword

Vibrations. Good vibes. Bad vibes. Too much of vibes. Not enough of them. When I first heard of vibrations, I was in my teens, and it was all about the good vibes coming from great music bands. After that, as an orthopaedic trainee, I was taught that vibrations were bad: helicopter pilots and truck drivers were exposed to exactly the kind of vibrations which induced asynchronous contractions of the back muscles, and had direct deleterious effects on the vertebral discs. The result includes low back pain and osteoarthritis of the lumbar spine. Following this, somebody had the great idea to test vibrations in clinical practice. Lo and behold, some science was injected into vibration science, and it was found that if too much is not too good (actually, it is pretty bad), a measured amount of the right kind of vibration can bring good. Prof. Saggini has been on the forefront of this “good vibes movement”.

Prof. Saggini is a thoughtful, skilled clinician, armed with foresight and rigour. He started observing and experimenting, and has been able to produce much of the present day scientific evidence on this fascinating topic. “Mechanical vibration: therapeutic effects and applications” show, as Prof. Saggini would say, that “nothing rests”. Indeed, we are moving all the time, and vibration is at the centre of our life.

Progressing from the basic sciences of vibration, the scene is set for clinical applications, in a variety of forms. The truth, however, is that: this edition of “Mechanical vibration: therapeutic effects and applications”, provides the beginning, and, through the strict scientific work that Prof. Saggini will continue to perform, more truth will come out of it.

Enjoy!