Right after the PABC AGM meeting last Saturday (excellent presentations by Neil Pearson and the WAD group – I will blog on these later this week – including the full presentation texts :), I just wanted to have a bit of your attention to this excellent article, written by Robert D Herbert, Chris G Maher, Anne M Moseley, and Catherine Sherrington from the School of Physiotherapy, University of Sydney, and published in the British Medical Journal (one of the five top medical journals) in 2001 – BMJ, 2001 October 6; 323(7316): 788–790.
The authors say that publication of randomised trials and systematic reviews in physiotherapy has increased spectacularly over the past few years. There were more than 2,700 randomised trials and systematic reviews in physiotherapy, of which more than 800 have been published since 1997 (till 2001). The evidence from the best of these trials confirms the value of some current physiotherapy practices and the ineffectiveness of others. Some little used interventions have been found to be remarkably beneficial.
This article describes some advances in understanding of physiotherapy that have arisen from recent clinical trials: Urinary incontinence, Movement dysfunction resulting from stroke, Acute and chronic respiratory disease, and Prevention of falls in elderly people.
Moreover, this article discusses the Centre for Evidence-Based Physiotherapy’s PEDro (Physiotherapy Evidence Database) – the major (FREE) Evidence Based Physio resource!
I will be discussing and explaining PEDro in details sometimes in the near future, however, please do take a couple of minutes to play around with this resource…you will appreciate the evidence our colleagues in Australia have collected and organized for us all!
Some additional summary points from this article include the following:
• Early provision of reassurance and advice to return to activity can prevent chronic disability associated with back pain
• Massage and electrotherapy are not useful for chronic pain, but exercise programmes can reduce disability
• Women with urinary incontinence can be helped with pelvic floor muscle training
• Multidisciplinary stroke rehabilitation programmes reduce the risk of disability and death and institutionalised care or dependency
• Prophylactic chest physiotherapy reduces postoperative complications in high risk patients
• Pulmonary rehabilitation programmes for people with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease reduce dyspnoea and increase walking distance
• Tailored exercise programmes reduce the risk of falls in elderly people
Full text of this article is available here – http://tinyurl.com/ldbhc or a PDF copy is available here – http://tinyurl.com/m27ml
I am going to blog about Neil Pearson’s approach to Managing Patients in Pain tomorrow – stay tuned 🙂
One reply on “Effective Physiotherapy”
I attended the day’s events; very well-organized and informative throughout. Good job PABC!
About Neil’s presentation, very cutting edge, relevant and very interesting! Although he didn’t mention it, he is co-chair of a new group in Canada called the Canadian Physiotherapy Pain Sciences Group. (I know a bit about this group as I was one of its founding members.) It is welcoming membership at large- stay tuned. 🙂