Knowledge translation from continuing education to physiotherapy practice in classifying patients with low back pain.

Objectives: Physical therapists have used continuing education as a method of improving their skills in conducting clinical examination of patients with low back pain (LBP). The purpose of this study was to evaluate how well the pathoanatomical classification of patients in acute or subacute LBP can be learned and applied through a continuing education format. The patients were seen in a direct access setting.

Inter-tester Reliability in Classifying Acute and Subacute Low Back Pain Patients into Clinical Subgroups: A Comparison of Specialists and Non-Specialists. A Pilot Study.

Many systems have been suggested for classifying low back pain (LBP); the most commonly used among physiotherapists involves a pathoanatomical/pathophysiological tissue classification system. Few studies have examined whether this form of classification of LBP disorders can be performed in a reliable manner between specialists with advanced training, or between specialists with advanced training and non-specialists who lack advanced training. The purpose of this paper was to examine the inter-tester reliability of two specialists, and the ability of a specialist and non-specialist to independently classify patients with LBP, utilizing clinical tests and history-based classification methods after a short educational course on the classification system.

Clinical perspective: how do clinical test results differentiate chronic and subacute low back pain patients from "non-patients"?

Our limited understanding of underlying conditions for back pain is reflected in the common use of pain-duration-based groupings. The aim of this paper was to investigate typical clinical tests used in examining low back pain (LBP) patients in order to discover how tests distinguish between chronic low back pain patients (CLBP) and subacute low back pain patients (SLBP) and if they distinguish these groups from those with no "patient status." CLBP patients in this study were from a university hospital and SLBP patients were from five occupational health care centers.

Dynamic kine magnetic resonance imaging in whiplash patients and in age- and sex-matched controls.

The multitude of symptoms following a whiplash injury has given rise to much discussion because of the lack of objective radiological findings. The ligaments that stabilize the upper cervical spine can be injured. Dynamic kine magnetic resonance imaging (dMRI) may reveal the pathological motion patterns caused by injury to these ligaments.

Orthopaedic manual therapy, McKenzie method or advice only for low back pain in working adults: a randomized controlled trial with one year follow-up.

Objective: To examine the effects of 2 manual therapy methods compared with one counselling session with a physiotherapist with "advice-only to stay active" for treating low back pain/leg pain and disability.

Design: A randomized, controlled trial with a 1-year follow-up.

Subjects: A total of 134 subjects with low back disorders.