{"id":317,"date":"2020-05-28T17:09:01","date_gmt":"2020-05-28T21:09:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/myuprightlife.com\/?p=317"},"modified":"2020-05-28T17:09:04","modified_gmt":"2020-05-28T21:09:04","slug":"sciatica-sexy-search","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/myuprightlife.com\/index.php\/2020\/05\/28\/sciatica-sexy-search\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cSciatica\u201d Is a Sexy Topic for Search. For Research, Not So Much."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Okay, okay, I know \u2013 science is supposed to be unbiased. And a responsible scientist will do her best to check her opinions at the door. But honestly, I love a good research article that confirms something I already know. Which is why I enjoyed \u201cSciatica: Internet Search Trends<\/a>\u201d more than I probably should.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As research papers go, this one was fairly easy to follow. The authors checked sites commonly used by patients to research health conditions (Wikipedia and Google) against the published article record in PubMed<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Public View<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Because the authors searched publicly accessible platforms, I was able to recreate their data. First, I turned to Google Trends<\/a> to examine search trends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unsurprisingly (to me, anyway), the authors reported that searches for \u201cSciatica\u201d and the related term \u201cLow back pain\u201d have been increasing over time. My thought was, of course!<\/em> But doesn\u2019t that just prove we rely on Google more for <\/em>everything now?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not necessarily. The authors noted that searches for other neurological conditions have actually decreased. They used \u201cMultiple sclerosis\u201d as a comparison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I checked, I saw that sure enough, sciatica and LBP trended up, while searches for MS decreased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s worth noting that Google Trends doesn\u2019t show the exact number of searches, just the comparative popularity of a search term over time. So we know that there are more searches for \u201cLow back pain\u201d than \u201cSciatica\u201d, but we don\u2019t know how wide the gulf is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also checked a few other common neurological disorders, to see how they would compare. I concluded that the term \u201cMultiple sclerosis\u201d did seem cherry-picked to provide a nice counterexample to \u201cSciatica\u201d and \u201cLow back pain\u201d, though I wouldn\u2019t call it deceptive. The other results don\u2019t prove the point as well, but they don\u2019t paint a dramatically different picture either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAlzheimer\u2019s disease\u201d, \u201cEpilepsy\u201d, and \u201cCerebral palsy\u201d held reasonably steady over time, though each had peaks and valleys. \u201cMigraine\u201d rose in tandem with sciatica and LBP. The most interesting pattern was for \u201cAutism\u201d, which spikes reliably every April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
I can only conclude that autism spikes in April.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I had to spend some time getting up to speed on the Wikipedia Massviews Analysis<\/a> tool, but once I did, it was actually pretty cool. The data only goes back to July 2015, which appears to be why the authors of the paper used a different time frame for the Wikipedia search.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, I was able to confirm their results. The Wikipedia page for Sciatica is indexed under four categories, and the rankings in each were as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n