1st Back-Up Study Clinical Advisory Group

• A systematic review of European clinical guidelines for back and neck pain
• Proposed definitions of the inclusion and exclusion criteria for the study
• Adaptation of the existing evidence-based prognosis risk stratification tool, STarT MSK, for use in first-line management of back and neck pain across Europe
• A demonstration of the online Back-UP system using the Antari Homecare software
• Alignment of freely available, English language, high-quality patient self-management resources (leaflets or videos) with a clinical letter template that each patient will receive after their initial Back-UP appointment

Back-UP in the EPIC 2019 conference

The World Federation of Chiropractic (WFC) and the European Chiropractors’ Union (ECU) celebrated in Berlin the joint 15^th WFC Biennial Congress and 78^th ECU Convention (EPIC 2019, March 20-23).

In this congress Cecilie Krage Øverås (NTNU) presented a poster about the systematic review protocol to investigate the relationship between objectively measured physical behaviour and neck pain, one of the research activities made within the framework of the Back-UP project.

The Back-UP Consortium welcomes the University of Leeds

The Research Platform of Back-UP, developed by the Centre for Computational Imaging and Simulation Technologies in Biomedicine (CISTIB), has a new home since the start of the course 2018-2019, coinciding with the new phase of CISTIB in the University of Leeds, after seven highly productive years in the University of Sheffield.

Today the European Commission has officially confirmed this transfer of tasks in the Back-UP Project, from Sheffield to Leeds. The Back-UP Consortium welcomes the University of Leeds as their new member, and congratulates Dr. Alejandro Frangi, the Principal Investigator of CISTIB and new Diamond Jubilee Chair of Computational Medicine in Leeds for his new post, as well as all the members of CISTIB for their new research adventure!

Back-UP presented by RRD in the Dutch Geriatic Conference

On the annual Dutch geriatric conference (7 & 8 February, 2019), Roessingh Research and Development (RRD) presented the current state of the art on the development of technology for older adults.  After a short introduction on RRD, Marijke Broekhuis presented the need for user research and usability evaluation among this target population. Technology can only be effective when older adults are willing to use the technology.

Next, a showcase of various eHealth projects were presented. Among these was the Back-UP project. Finally, Stephanie Jansen – Kosterink presented her ideas on proper evaluation of these kinds of services and her quest for more innovative and pragmatic research methods. The session ended with a discussion among the audience and presenters.

The Back-UP Consortium meets in Enschede by the end of the first year of the project

Back-UP has completed the first year of activity, and celebrated its consortium meeting in Roessingh Research & Development premises in Enschede, the Netherlands.

RRD is the biggest centre in the Netherlands where a wide range of disciplines such as rehabilitation medicine, movement sciences, psychology, physiotherapy, biomedical sciences and computer sciences work together under a single roof for current and future innovations in rehabilitation and chronic care. The partners visited also the Roessingh Centrum voor Revalidatie and the NOVALAB, which has a completely new innovative treatment room with a great variety of rehabilitation technology and telemedicine applications, including a 3D rehabilitation treatment experimental application using virtual reality.

The meeting lasted two days. On day one, all the work packages status was deeply analysed. Day two was mostly dedicated to preparing the forthcoming review meeting: “In July, the consortium will travel to Luxembourg for the first check with EC”, says Giuseppe Caprara, Innovation manager of the project. During the meeting, Milton Hoz from Sheffied/Leeds, presented the progress in the creation of the system architecture. A first version of the baseline questionnaire has also been presented. This will be used to define the recommended treatments after the registration of the patient, and its final version is expected to be ready in January.

The next consortium meeting will be in June in Croatia, hosted by GENOS with his third party PMFST (University of Split).

Back-UP in NRClive Zorgtech

Thursday September 13th, 2018, the Back-UP project has been presented at the NRClive Zorgtech event in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Stephanie Jansen-Kosterink of Roessingh Research and Development (RRD) presented her ideas on the need of more pragmatic evaluation designs for the (clinical) evaluation of eHealth. The Back-UP project was a casus during this presentation.

Back-UP paper published in Musculoskeletal Science and Practice

The study “Relationship between neck motion and self-reported pain in patients with whiplash associated disorders during the acute phase” has been published in the journal Musculoskeletal Science and Practice, presenting a statistical model to estimate the evolution of perceived pain from biomechanical measurements.

Back-UP in VPH2018

Back-UP has been presented today by Milton Hoz de Vila, in the VPH2018 conference, with the poster “The Back-UP project: towards predictive diagnosis and personalised medicine for NLBP underpinned by the VPH technologies and vision“.

Presentation of the Back-UP project in SBPR 2018

On Thursday November 15, 2018, Roessingh Research and Development will present the Back-UP project during SBPR 2018 meeting at the University Medical Center of Groningen, the Netherlands. This meeting of the Society for Back Pain Research (SBPR) focuses on understanding the mechanisms of back pain, with extra interest in the areas of work, rest and play.