Software resources

• Back-UP Researcher Platform — powered by CISTIB.
• First Contact Clinician Web App — to help first contact clinicians and patients in their first visit to manage neck and low back pain.
• Vocational Advice Module — targeted to patients identified as struggling with work by their first contact practitioner, to increase their return-to-work self-efficacy.
• selfBACK app — in Apple Store, to support patients in self-management of low back pain.
• glycanR package — software package to analyse glycan data in R.

Demonstration videos

• Back-UP Research Platform
• First Contact Module
• Vocational Advice Module
• selfBACK
• Integration with GlycanAge
• Antari HomeCare
• Economic Model

Three papers on low back pain published in the issue 391(10137) of The Lancet (March 2018), which address the issues around the disorder and call for worldwide recognition of the disability associated with the disorder and the removal of harmful practices. This includes:

• “What low back pain is and why we need to pay attention”. By J. Hartvigsen, M.J. Hancock, A. Kongsted et al. DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)30480-X
• “Prevention and treatment of low back pain: evidence, challenges, and promising directions”. By N.E. Foster, J.R. Anema, D. Cherkin et al. DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)30489-6
• “Low back pain: a call for action”. By R. Buchbinder, M. van Tulder, B. Öberg et al. DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(18)30488-4

See the summary of the series at: https://www.thelancet.com/series/low-back-pain

PainScience.com is a portal that features updated reviews, articles, tutorials and many other resources about common painful problems, including musculoskeletal pain, fibromyalgia, inflammations, etc. All materials are based on the latest evidence and written in plain language, useful for both patients and health care professionals. Their book store includes book-length tutorials for neck and low back pain by Paul Ingraham, continuously updated with the latest scientific knowledge:

• Save Yourself from Low Back Pain! — Low back pain myths debunked and all your treatment options reviewed
• Save Yourself from Neck Pain! — A complete guide to chronic neck pain and the disturbing sensation of a “crick”

URL: https://www.painscience.com/

The selfBACK project is a healthcare programme centred round self-management of low back pain, in order to prevent chronicity, recurrence and pain-related disability. The Consortium of selfBACK, coordinated by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, has developed a decision support system, which deliver information to the patients through a smartphone app, providing advice to reinforce their personalised self-management plan.

URL: https://www.selfback.eu/

STarT Back is a simple prognostic questionnaire, developed by the University of Keele, that helps clinicians identify modifiable risk factors (biomedical, psychological and social) for back pain disability. STarT Back has been tested and validated in a large randomised control trial with more than 1,500 patients. There is an online version of this tool in English, and available translations into more than 30 languages.URL: https://www.keele.ac.uk/sbst/startbacktool/

The Cochrane Back and Neck is a Review Group that coordinates the publication of literature reviews of diagnosis, primary and secondary prevention and treatment of neck and back pain and other spinal disorders. Their website contains the list of reviews that they produce, news, events and other resources.

URL: http://back.cochrane.org/cochrane-back-and-neck

Since April 2020, the reviews of this group are moved to the Cochrane Musculoskeletal Group:

URL: https://musculoskeletal.cochrane.org/

• Clinical Practice Guidelines Linked to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability, and Health from the Orthopaedic Section of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA):
  • Guidelines for low back pain (2012).
  • Guidelines for neck pain (2008, revised in 2017).
• Clinical Practice Guideline From the American College of Physicians. Published in the Annals of Internal Medicine Vol. 166(7), 2017.
• Guidance of the NICE (National Institute of Health and Care Excellence, UK), on low back pain and sciatica for people aged 16 and over (2016).
• European Guidelines produced by the COST B13 Working Group on Guidelines for Prevention in Low Back Pain. Published in the European Spine Journal Vol. 15(2) supplement (2004):
  • Chapter 1. Introduction
  • Chapter 2. European guidelines for prevention in low back pain
  • Chapter 3. European guidelines for the management of acute nonspecific low back pain in primary care
  • Chapter 4. European guidelines for the management of chronic nonspecific low back pain
• Clinical practice guideline for the treatment of neck pain and whiplash associated disorders, by the Canadian Chiropractic Guideline Initiative. Published in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics Vol. 39(8), 2016.