Racial Disparities in Outpatient Physical Therapy Use After Hip Fracture: A Retrospective Cohort Study.

To examine whether there was a racial disparity among Medicare beneficiaries in the likelihood of using outpatient physical therapy (PT) services following a hip fracture. Our retrospective descriptive cohort study analyzed administrative claims data for 51 781 Medicare beneficiaries post hip fracture. We examined the association between race and PT use within the first 6 months post fracture using hierarchical logistic regression, adjusting for demographics, medical complexity, and socioeconomic factors.

Intra-rater reliability of rehabilitative ultrasound imaging of erector spinae and gluteus medius muscles in patients with low back pain.

Background: Low back pain (LBP) is one of the most common conditions in the United States. Dysfunctional patterns of the erector spinae (ES) and gluteus medius (GM) muscles often accompany episodes of LBP.

Objectives: To evaluate the intra-rater reliability of rehabilitative ultrasound imaging (RUSI) in obtaining thickness measurements of the ES and GM muscles at rest and during submaximal contraction.

Practice Changes 6 Months Following a Physical Therapist Training Program Regarding Opioid Use and Misuse Screening and Assessment: A Qualitative Study.

Background: The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends that all healthcare providers be trained to screen for misuse and/or opioid use disorder.

Midlife Women's Menopausal Transition Symptom Experience and Access to Medical and Integrative Health Care: Informing the Development of MENOGAP.

Background: Individuals with a uterus experience menopause, the cessation of menses, on average at age 51 years in the United States. While menopause is a natural occurrence for most, over 85% of women experience multiple interfering symptoms. Menopausal women face health disparities, including a lack of access to high-quality healthcare and greater disparities are experienced by women who are black, indigenous, and people of color.

PT-IN-MIND: study protocol for a multisite randomised feasibility trial investigating physical therapy with integrated mindfulness (PT-IN-MIND) for patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain and long-term opioid treatment who attend outpatient physical therapy.

Introduction: Many individuals receiving outpatient physical therapy have musculoskeletal pain and up to one-third use prescription opioids. The impact of physical therapist-led mindfulness-based interventions integrated with evidence-based physical therapy (I-EPT) to manage patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain and long-term opioid treatment has not been elucidated. This project evaluates the feasibility of conducting a cluster randomised trial to test the effectiveness of I-EPT.

Comparison of erector spinae and gluteus medius muscle thickness and activation in individuals with and without low back pain.

Background: Dysfunctional patterns of the erector spinae (ES) and gluteus medius (GM) muscles often accompany episodes of low back pain (LBP). Rehabilitative ultrasound imaging (RUSI) has been used to measure ES and GM muscle thickness, however such measurements have not been compared in individuals with and without LBP.

Objectives: To compare ES and GM muscle thickness and change in thickness utilizing RUSI in individuals with and without LBP.

A multicenter randomized trial to compare automatic versus as-needed follow-up for children hospitalized with common infections: The FAAN-C trial protocol.

Introduction: Physicians commonly recommend automatic primary care follow-up visits to children being discharged from the hospital. While automatic follow-up provides an opportunity to address postdischarge needs, the alternative is as-needed follow-up. With this strategy, families monitor their child's symptoms and decide if they need a follow-up visit in the days after discharge.

Developing an international consensus Reporting guideline for intervention Fidelity in Non-Drug, non-surgical trials: The ReFiND protocol.

Background: Inadequate reporting of fidelity to interventions in trials limits the transparency and interpretation of trial findings. Despite this, most trials of non-drug, non-surgical interventions lack comprehensive reporting of fidelity. If fidelity is poorly reported, it is unclear which intervention components were tested or implemented within the trial, which also hinders research reproducibility.

Understanding social determinants of health and physical therapy outcomes in patients with low back pain: A scoping review.

Background: Low back pain (LBP) is the number one cause of disability worldwide; however, it is not clear how social determinants of health (SDOH) impact care management and outcomes related to physical therapy (PT) services for patients with LBP.

Objective: The purposes of this scoping review are to examine and assimilate the literature on how SDOH and PT care relate to non-specific LBP outcomes and identify gaps in the literature to target for future research.

Methods: Data were extracted from eight electronic databases from January 2011 to February 2022.

The Development of an Opioid Misuse Training Program for Physical Therapists: A Learning Community Approach.

Introduction: Musculoskeletal pain and opioid misuse frequently co-occur.

Review Of The Literature: The US Preventive Services Task Force calls for all health care providers to be trained to screen for misuse and/or opioid use disorder. The purpose of this study was to develop and implement an opioid misuse training program that could be used by physical therapists.

Telehealth delivery of physical therapist-led interventions for persons with chronic low back pain in underserved communities: lessons from pragmatic clinical trials.

In this perspective, we present our experience developing and conducting two pragmatic clinical trials investigating physical therapist-led telehealth strategies for persons with chronic low back pain. Both trials, the BeatPain Utah and AIM-Back trials, are part of pragmatic clinical trial collaboratories and are being conducted with persons from communities that experience pain management disparities. Practice guidelines recommend nonpharmacologic care, and advise against opioid therapy, for the primary care management of persons with chronic low back pain.

The Effect of Combining Spinal Manipulation and Dry Needling in Individuals With Nonspecific Low Back Pain.

Low back pain (LBP) is one of the most common and costly musculoskeletal conditions impacting health care in the United States. The development of multimodal strategies of treatment is imperative in order to curb the growing incidence and prevalence of LBP. Spinal manipulative therapy (SMT), dry needling (DN), and exercise are common nonpharmacological treatments for LBP.

Orthopaedic Manual Physical Therapy: A Modern Definition and Description.

Currently, orthopaedic manual physical therapy (OMPT) lacks a description of practice that reflects contemporary thinking and embraces advances across the scientific, clinical, and educational arms of the profession. The absence of a clear definition of OMPT reduces understanding of the approach across health care professions and potentially limits OMPT from inclusion in scientific reviews and clinical practice guidelines. For example, it is often incorrectly classified as passive care or incorrectly contrasted with exercise-therapy approaches.

Trends in Telerehabilitation Utilization in the United States 2020-2021.

Objective: To examine telerehabilitation utilization in the United States (US) during the first 2 years of the pandemic.

Design: We performed a retrospective analysis of outpatient insurance claims from the IBM MarketScan Commercial Claims and Encounters Database to identify the number and proportion of patients using telerehabilitation from 2020 to 2021. Telerehabilitation was identified based on the presence of specific code modifiers and place of service.

[Evidence-based interventions to treat chronic low back pain: treatment selection for a personalized medicine approach : German version].

Introduction: Chronic low back pain (cLBP) is highly prevalent in the United States and globally, resulting in functional impairment and lowered quality of life. While many treatments are available for cLBP, clinicians have little information about which specific treatment(s) will work best for individual patients or subgroups of patients. The Back Pain Research Consortium, part of the National Institutes of Health Helping to End Addiction Long-term (HEAL) Initiative, will conduct a collaborative clinical trial, which seeks to develop a personalized medicine algorithm to optimize patient and provider treatment selection for patients with cLBP.

A multicenter feasibility randomized controlled trial using a virtual reality application of pain neuroscience education for adults with chronic low back pain.

Background: Chronic low back pain (CLBP) is a highly prevalent condition among adults and is correlated to high levels of pain, high disability, and lower quality of life. Pain neuroscience education (PNE) helps to explain the pain experience and can affect psychosocial factors, such as fear of movement, anxiety, socioeconomic status, work life satisfaction, etc. More recently, virtual reality (VR) programs have emerged allowing for immersive PNE experiences.

Use of implementation mapping in the planning of a hybrid type 1 pragmatic clinical trial: the BeatPain Utah study.

Background: Considerable disparities in chronic pain management have been identified. Persons in rural, lower income, and minoritized communities are less likely to receive evidence-based, nonpharmacologic care. Telehealth delivery of nonpharmacologic, evidence-based interventions for persons with chronic pain is a promising strategy to lessen disparities, but implementation comes with many challenges.

Differences in Pain Experience Among Different Racial and Ethnic Groups.

Objective: The objective of this study was to examine the role of pain catastrophizing and pain self-efficacy as possible mediators of race-based differences in pain intensity and to evaluate the possible moderating role of race on the relationship between pain catastrophizing and pain self-efficacy with pain outcomes among persons with chronic spinal pain receiving physical therapy.

Methods: This study was a secondary analysis of a cluster-randomized trial. Participants were persons with chronic spinal pain in outpatient physical therapy clinics who consented to complete assessments at baseline and after 2 weeks and 12 weeks.

Examining the Relationship Between Individual Patient Factors and Substantial Clinical Benefit From Telerehabilitation Among Patients With Chronic Low Back Pain.

Objective: The coronavirus disease-2019 pandemic has facilitated the emergence of telerehabilitation, but it is unclear which patients are most likely to respond to physical therapy provided this way. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between individual patient factors and substantial clinical benefit from telerehabilitation among a cohort of patients with chronic low back pain (LBP).

Methods: This is a secondary analysis of data collected during a prospective longitudinal cohort study.