Back in Play is a pan-European campaign supported by Pfizer, ankylosing spondylitis patient groups and professional footballers across Europe, to raise mass awareness of ankylosing spondylitis (AS), a chronic inflammatory condition, affecting the spine, causing severe, chronic pain and discomfort.

The need to raise awareness of ankylosing spondylitis

Ankylosing spondylitis is a relatively unknown condition, which tends to start in young people, affecting higher numbers of men than women, in their late teens and twenties. As the symptoms are often hard to identify and are easily confused with common lower back pain, sports injuries and muscle strain, particularly as they affect younger, active people, it can take many years for sufferers to get an accurate diagnosis.

It is hoped that with the help of a simple checklist of typical AS symptoms, awareness of the condition will be increased thus improving diagnosis rates.

Football is widely considered to be one of the most popular sports in the world appealing to a wide audience and an addictive online game is a fun way of interactively learning. Most football fans and game fanatics will not have heard about AS and yet a proportion of these people may have symptoms that have gone unnoticed – a simple checklist of symptoms could change this! The game incorporates AS symptoms to help raise awareness of the condition and links to the campaign website, a source of further information on AS.

The throw-in is a key element of football, requiring skill and back strength to maximise opportunities for the players to take control of the ball and score the ultimate goal.  The idea behind using a throw-in stemmed from the fact that mobility of the spine is reduced with AS whilst flexibility and strength of the spine are important in order to achieve a great throw-in. The Back in Play football game tests your skills and dexterity with increasingly skilful control and technique to achieve the highest score and compete against the best in Europe.

The Back in Play website is primarily a source of information on AS and provides links to patient organisations allowing potential sufferers to access further information about the condition.

To visit the website and play the game, please go to www.back-in-play.com

In addition, the website is home to the Back in Play game with high score tables, content from professional footballers including the campaign ambassador Rory Delap, a video centre and information about the campaign itself.