Publications by authors named "Anita Amorim"

Background: Low-quality care for low back pain (LBP) is pervasive in Australia. Drivers of low-quality care have been identified elsewhere and include misconceptions about LBP, vested interests and limited funding for evidence-based interventions. Yet, the literature that identified such drivers is not specific to the Australian context, and therefore, it is likely to represent only part of the local problem.

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Background: Global policy and guidelines for low back pain (LBP) management promote physical activity and self-management yet adherence is poor and a decline in outcomes is common following discharge from treatment. Health coaching is effective at improving exercise adherence, self-efficacy, and social support in individuals with chronic conditions, and may be an acceptable, cost-effective way to support people in the community following discharge from treatment for LBP.

Aim: This qualitative study aimed to understand which aspects of a community over-the-phone health-coaching program, were liked and disliked by patients as well as their perceived outcomes of the service after being discharged from LBP treatment.

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Various cationic photosensitizers employed in antimicrobial photodynamic therapy (aPDT) have the ability to photoinactivate planktonic bacteria under conditions of low phototoxicity to mammalian cells and without generating antimicrobial resistance (AMR). However, the photoinactivation of biofilms requires orders-of-magnitude higher photosensitizer concentrations, which become toxic to host cells. Remarkably, the bactericidal effect of a dicationic di-imidazolyl chlorin toward planktonic and was observed in this work for concentrations below 400 nM under illumination at 660 nm and below 50 μM for the corresponding biofilms.

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Background: Qualitative evidence points to the importance of both mental health-related barriers and benefits to exercise in chronic pain, yet this bidirectional relationship has not been established quantitatively.

Methods: 89 adults with chronic pain (75 female, Age: M = 34.7, SD=13.

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Question: What is the effect of health coaching on physical activity, disability, pain and quality of life compared with a non-active control in adults with chronic non-cancer pain?

Design: Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. Evidence was synthesised as standardised mean differences with 95% confidence intervals using random-effects models. Risk of bias was assessed using the revised Cochrane risk of bias tool.

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Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) provide structured information on the patient's health experience and facilitate shared clinical decision-making. Registries that collect PROMs generate essential information about the clinical course and efficacy of interventions. Whilst PROMs are increasingly being used in adult orthopaedic registries, their use in paediatric orthopaedic registries is not well known.

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The COVID-19 pandemic exposes our vulnerability to viruses that acquire the ability to infect our cells. Classical disinfection methods are limited by toxicity. Existing medicines performed poorly against SARS-CoV-2 because of their specificity to targets in different organisms.

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Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused wide-spread disruptions to the conduct of randomised controlled trials (RCTs), particularly those involving public health services. Using the Get Back to Healthy trial as an example, this study aimed to contextualise the challenges imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic on implementation of RCTs involving public health services in Australia, summarise the effect of common and novel contingency strategies employed to mitigate these challenges, and describe key lessons learned.

Methods: The main challenges, the effect of contingency strategies employed, and key lessons learned were summarised descriptively.

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Background: Patellofemoral pain (PFP) is a common knee disorder that causes persistent pain, lower self-reported function and quality of life. People with PFP also present with altered psychological factors, which are associated with higher levels of pain and dysfunction. Mindfulness-based interventions (MBI) generally consist of meditative practices developed to provide a holistic approach to chronic conditions.

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Objective: This scoping review aimed to comprehensively review strategies for implementation of low back pain (LBP) guidelines, policies, and models of care in the Australian health care system.

Methods: A literature search was conducted in MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, Allied and Complementary Medicine Database, and Web of Science to identify studies that aimed to implement or integrate evidence-based interventions or practices to improve LBP care within Australian settings.

Results: Twenty-five studies met the inclusion criteria.

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Background: Although many people with chronic low back pain (LBP) improve following conservative treatment, one in five will experience worsening symptoms after discharge from treatment and seek health care again. The current LBP clinical care pathway in many health services lacks a well-integrated, systematic approach to support patients to remain physically active and self-manage their symptoms following discharge from treatment. Health coaching can support people to improve physical activity levels and may potentially reduce health care utilisation for LBP.

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Background: Low back pain (LBP) is a frequent reason for emergency department (ED) presentations, with a global prevalence of 4.4%. Despite being common, the number of clinical trials investigating LBP in the ED is low.

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Objective: To identify common characteristics of landmark physiotherapy clinical trials.

Methods: The Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) top five trials were compared to 91 physiotherapy trials published in top medical journals and 99 trials randomly selected from PEDro on the following characteristics: PEDro score, sample size, number of trial sites, use of prospective registration, positive or negative trial, citations, citations in guidelines, Altmetric score, impact factor, publications and citations of first and last author, and PEDro codes (sub-discipline, topic, problem, therapy, and body part). Trials were published from 2014 to 2019.

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We investigated if parental multisite chronic pain increases the risk of adult offspring developing additional chronic pain sites, and if offspring body mass index (BMI) and leisure time physical activity modify this association. We used longitudinal data on 7,654 offspring linked with their parents who participated in the population-based HUNT Study (Norway) in 1995 to 1997 and 2006 to 2008. Logistic regression was used to estimate odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence interval (CI).

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Background: Mechanical Diagnosis and Therapy (MDT) is a treatment-based classification system founded on 3 core principles: classification into diagnostic syndromes, classification-based intervention, and appropriate application of force. Many randomized controlled trials have investigated the efficacy of MDT for low back pain; however, results have varied. The inconsistent delivery of MDT across trials may explain the different findings.

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Background: Low back pain is one of the most prevalent musculoskeletal conditions and the highest contributor to disability in the world. It is characterized by frequent relapses leading to additional care-seeking. Engagement in leisure physical activity is associated with lower recurrences and better prognosis and potentially reduced care-seeking.

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Objectives: To investigate the influence of parental chronic spinal pain on prognosis of chronic spinal pain in adult offspring, and whether offspring physical activity level and body mass index (BMI) modified this association.

Design: Prospective cohort study.

Setting: We used family-linked longitudinal data from the Norwegian HUNT study collected in HUNT2 (1995-1997) and HUNT3 (2006-2008).

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Background: Physical inactivity is common in older age, yet increased activity benefits older people in terms of preventing chronic disease and maximising independence. Health coaching is a behaviour change intervention that has been shown to increase physical activity in clinical populations. This systematic review and meta-analysis investigated the effect of health coaching on physical activity, mobility, quality of life and mood in older people.

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Background: The relationship between sedentary lifestyle and low back pain (LBP) remains unclear and previous research has not accounted for genetic and early environmental factors.

Purpose: Our aim was to investigate if sedentary behavior is associated with the lifetime prevalence of persistent LBP and the risk of developing persistent LBP, care-seeking due to LBP, and activity limiting LBP when genetics and early environmental factors are accounted for.

Study Design: Both cross-sectional and longitudinal designs with a within-pair twin case-control were implemented.

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Background: Despite a large amount of research investigating physical activity (PA) levels in people with chronic low back pain (LBP), no study has investigated whether people with chronic LBP are meeting the World Health Organization (WHO) PA guidelines. Furthermore, with genetics and the early shared environment substantially influencing the presence of LBP and PA engagement, these factors could confound the association between LBP and PA and need to be controlled for.

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the association between chronic LBP and meeting the PA guidelines, while controlling for the effects of genetics and early shared environment.

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Background: It is well recognised that low back pain is a significant public health problem and engagement in moderate levels of physical activity is associated with positive outcomes. Conservative active care, such as exercise, is effective in reducing pain and disability associated with chronic low back pain. However, a rapid decline in clinical outcomes is commonly seen after discharge from treatment.

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The aim of this study was to analyze the immediate effects of applying Kinesio Taping(®) (KT) on the neuromuscular performance of femoral quadriceps, postural balance and lower limb function in healthy subjects. This is a randomized, blind, controlled, clinical trial, where sixty female volunteers (age: 23.3 ± 2.

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