TREATMENT OF LOW BACK DISORDERS WITH MANUAL THERAPY

Welcome to the STOPS.physio course on Lumbar treatment: manual therapy.

This course can either be purchased individually or as part of the STOPS Assessment and treatment of low back disorders four course bundle.

Based on ground breaking research from the STOPS trial and the latest evidence-based literature. After completing this course practitioners will have sufficient knowledge to treat a typical low back disorder patient in a primary care setting.

Practitioners are primarily interested in providing effective treatment for their patients with LBD. However the 1st step in this process is the identification of primary barriers to recovery. We therefore strongly recommend all practitioners considering completion of this course to firstly complete the Standard and Complex assessment of low back disorders courses. This will enable practitioners to identify patients with uncomplicated lumbar Z joint pain that should be highly responsive to the treatment methods outlined in this course.

This course is divided into modules which are a series of topic specific lectures. Through-out these lectures you will have the opportunity to test your understanding by completing multiple attempt quiz questions.

On completion of this course the practitioner should have sufficient knowledge to:

• Understand the basic principles of the Maitland method as it applies to lumbar Z joint pain
• Generate and text hypotheses regarding cause of symptoms, source of symptoms, relationship between symptoms and contributing factors
• Adequately select an appropriate treatment technique that results in patient improvement
• Adequately reassess a patient to evaluate the effectiveness of the technique
• Progress the patient through a 10 session treatment program including planning for discharge
• Identify and appropriately triage patients not responding to manual therapy
• Be able to apply manual therapy principles to subgroups other than lumbar Z joint pain

Course format includes text, interactive tests of your understanding, photos, videos and numerous tables/figures.

Quizzes throughout the course will assist the practitioner in self assessment of progress.The practitioner will be able to have multiple attempts at these quizzes and their completion is not compulsory. Formal assessment and certification is an optional extra for the practitioner to ensure the above learning outcomes have been achieved.

Following are some “test your understanding” exercises from "Standard assessment of low back disorders" as a self assessment tool to evaluate competency in these areas. If less than 4 out of 5 exercises are answered correctly we strongly advise review of "Standard assessment of low back disorders". If your licence to this material has expired please contact us.

TEST YOUR UNDERSTANDING

Ms Y has the following clinical profile:

• A 5 year history of recurrent on low grade chronic low back pain
• Having seen many different physiotherapists and chiropractors
• Being referred to physiotherapist A for comprehensive assessment by a physiotherapist Z who has seen Ms Y for the past 2 years. Although the hands on treatment once to twice weekly only provides variable relief (and sometimes makes her worse), she is believes physiotherapist Z is “the only one who understands her problem”
• Orebro score of 143/210
• Somewhat aggressive and defensive on beginning the clinical interview

Consider the following statement by Ms Y:

Ms Y: I don’t really know why I’m here. I’ve already seen heaps of physios and I’m happy with my current one. What can you do to help me