Anna Marcuzzi and colleagues from NTNU and St Olav’s Hospital in Trondheim have published a paper describien the protocol of a Randomised Control Trial (RCT), in which the selfBACK app will be compared with a web-based intervention and usual care for neck and low back pain, in BMJ Open.
Find the paper here: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2020-047921
Go into the Resources section of the Back-UP’s website, and explore the software tools that form the Back-UP Clinical Research Platform Ecosystem. You will find direct access links and demonstrative videos about multiple tools: The Back-UP Researcher and Clinician Platforms, the First Contact and the Vocational Advice apps, selfBACK, integrations with tools for research on glycans and back pain, and more.
See the video of the presentation delivered in BritSpine 2021, about the study conducted by Università di Padova, Mutua MAZ and IBV.
An “umbrella review” of prognostic factors for predicting future pain, disability and return‐to‐work/work absence in neck and low back pain populations, has been published by Gemma Mansell et al. in the European Journal of Pain, presenting seven prognostic factors (disability/activity limitation, mental health; pain intensity; pain severity; coping; expectation of outcome/recovery; and fear‐avoidance) that were judged as having moderate confidence for robust findings.
Find the paper here: https://doi.org/10.1002/ejp.1782
Congratulations to the team of Monaro et al., who have just published a second paper on the topic of detection of malingering in whiplash associated disorders, in the International Journal of Legal Medicine. This time, the featured article is a systematic review on the different strategies and techniques used in the field.
Read the full article in https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-021-02589-w
The paper entitle “A model to differentiate WAD patients and people with abnormal pain behaviour based on biomechanical and self-reported tests“, by Merylin Monaro et al., has been published in the International Journal of Legal Medicine, showing that the combination of self-reported pain symptoms and motion parameters obtained from biomechanical tests can be useful to evaluate the level of collaboration of patients in the assessment whiplash-related neck pain.
Read the full paper in https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-021-02572-5
As part of the Back-UP project, Dr Jonathan Hill (from Keele University UK) is leading a task to develop lists of trustworthy online self-management resources for patients with musculo-skeletal problems, adapted to the culture and language of as many European countries as possible.
If you are a health care professional, carer, or a person suffering from neck or low back pain, you can already find a document with such resources in 10 different languages (English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Danish, Swedish, Dutch, Polish and Portuguese).
Check them at http://backup-project.eu/?page_id=84
A systematic review to identify effective work place intervention strategies for the prevention of low back pain, by Danuta Roman-Liu et al. has been published in the Industrial Health journal, showing that the most effective strategies include technical modifications of the workstand and education based on practical training.
Read the full paper in: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7708737/
A systematic review made by the research team from the University of Keele, in collaboration with Aston University, the NHS Trust and the University of Southern Denmark, has been published in the European Journal of Pain.
This review includes 17 clinical guidelines from 8 different countries, and 14 treatment options consistently supported by various of them. This provides clinicians with a broad range of mostly non-pharmacological evidence-based treat-ment options to consider for their patients with neck or low back pain.
You can read the full paper here: https://doi.org/10.1002/ejp.1679
The Back-UP first contact tool for clinicians is now live! Try it in:
The content has been designed by clinicians to support initial treatment decision-making for patients with back and neck pain, and it has being designed to work in 12 European languages (English, Italian, Danish, Swedish, Dutch, Spanish, German, Polish, French, Portuguese, Croatian & Norwegian).
The Back-UP free web app offers clinicians and their patients:
The web app will be made available to you as part of early research testing in 3 stages:
The first 240 clinician users to complete their feedback on the Back-UP web-app will receive a £25 Amazon gift voucher (the vouchers are spread fairly across the different languages).
This project has ethical approval from Keele University UK, for convenience sampling using international professional and clinical networks.
Identifiable patient data is not entered or saved in the Back-UP web app. At this point in its research development the Back-UP web app is not linked to any routine electronic medical record systems. The web app will be made available until mid-December 2020.
We would be delighted if you would try it out in your clinical practice and give us feedback on how to improve it.
