Stepping up clinical care of back pain through deliberate practice: key tools for clinical diagnosis and management
This course aims to help physiotherapists augment and consolidate their competence across the key areas of differential diagnosis and evidence-informed management of people with low back pain. This aligns with 'Deliberate Practice' - the process of embracing opportunity to grow in professional skill and knowledge. Clinical Reasoning is underpinned by Clinical Anatomy and, together with selected Clinical Examination tests, is used by physiotherapists in clinical decision-making about treatment or management strategies for low back pain.
Neurological Examination of patients can be challenging due to wide variability in clinical presentation, therefore this aspect of Clinical Examination receives focused attention in this course. Accuracy around neurological findings is imperative to identify deficits to which treatment can be directed, to differentiate neuropathic, nociceptive or nociplastic pain, for reports to doctors and to step up care to meet the Australian Clinical Care Standards for low back pain. Therapeutic exercise is a key tool in the challenge to help patients embrace self-efficacy strategies that can reduce their pain and improve their quality of life, therefore this course includes an Exercise Workshop session informed by research and clinical reasoning.
To facilitate contextual learning a detailed case presentation is used in the final session. This allows for integration of the day's learning and to comprehensively pull together evidence-informed aspects of patient management. This includes: diagnosis, appraisal of evidence, radiology, pain science education, strategic sign- and symptom-based treatment, self-management strategies, selecting and teaching exercises, habit stacking, documenting change and reporting to healthcare colleagues.
Neurological Examination of patients can be challenging due to wide variability in clinical presentation, therefore this aspect of Clinical Examination receives focused attention in this course. Accuracy around neurological findings is imperative to identify deficits to which treatment can be directed, to differentiate neuropathic, nociceptive or nociplastic pain, for reports to doctors and to step up care to meet the Australian Clinical Care Standards for low back pain. Therapeutic exercise is a key tool in the challenge to help patients embrace self-efficacy strategies that can reduce their pain and improve their quality of life, therefore this course includes an Exercise Workshop session informed by research and clinical reasoning.
To facilitate contextual learning a detailed case presentation is used in the final session. This allows for integration of the day's learning and to comprehensively pull together evidence-informed aspects of patient management. This includes: diagnosis, appraisal of evidence, radiology, pain science education, strategic sign- and symptom-based treatment, self-management strategies, selecting and teaching exercises, habit stacking, documenting change and reporting to healthcare colleagues.
This course includes 3 hours of pre and post course reading.
Prerequisites
- This course is only available to qualified and AHPRA registered physiotherapists.
Presenters
Lynn Bardin
Dr Lynn Bardin, MACP, is a musculoskeletal physiotherapist whose clinical practice, teaching and research involvement focus on back pain and hip/knee osteoarthritis. Lynn qualified with a B.Sci. Physiotherapy degree, then further studies, a Certificate in Orthopaedic Musculoskeletal Therapy and Master of Science in Physiotherapy, at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa. She subsequently completed a Clinical Physiotherapy Doctorate at the University of Melbourne. Lynn consults at Superspine Clinic in Melbourne and assists with research activities at the Universities of Melbourne and South Australia. She has taught Anatomy at the University of Melbourne for the past 16 years and recently completed a 12-year clinical role at Austin Hospital. Lynn enjoys a role in education, fuelled by research and clinical experience in diagnosis, exercise prescription and pain science. Current research and clinical activities synthesise exercise prescription with pain science perspectives for chronic low back pain and knee osteoarthritis. She has championed spine rehabilitation contributing to clinical and academic education in this field in the UK, South Africa, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Australia. An ongoing commitment to physiotherapy and academia is reflected in numerous conference presentations and peer-reviewed publications. A career-long interest and passion to link research evidence and anatomy science to the challenge of LBP diagnosis and management in primary care culminated in a highly cited narrative review ‘Diagnostic triage for low back pain: a practical approach for primary care' (Bardin et al., Medical Journal of Australia, 2017).
Event location
We've noticed you're not a physiotherapist.
Please note, if a course or event is for registered physiotherapists only, this will be indicated in the event description.
Please make sure you are attending an event that is open to everyone.
Close