Welcome to episode 6 of The words Matter Podcast. On this episode I spoke with Dr Jerry Draper-Rodi.Jerry is a Senior Research Fellow at the University College of Osteopathy and is an academic clinician. His current roles include working as the Head of Continual Professional Development and as a Research Lecturer at the UCO, running an osteopathic practice in Oxford, and delivering CPD in BPS skills to clinicians mostly in France.He is the treasurer of the Society for Back Pain Research, and a fellow of the International Osteopathy Research Leadership group at the University of Technology Sydney (Australia). Jerry was awarded a Professional Doctorate in Osteopathy in 2016.His doctoral research was on the acceptability, feasibility and likely impact of a biopsychosocially-informed e-learning programme for non-specific LBP on experienced osteopathic practitioners' attitudes to back pain. See some of his published research here and here. Jerry is on the PhD supervisory team for David Hohenshurz-Schmidt who was my guest on episode 2 of this podcast where we talked about MSK going remote in light of COVID..Jerry is a colleague and friend of mine at the UCO; our desks sit opposite each other in the same office. In between (or sometimes instead of) doing work we have endless chats often centring around our passion and occasional frustrations of enhancing students and clinicians’ practice towards a BPS approach to back pain.Jerry, like many of us, came from a strong biomedical approach manual therapy background. So I was really keen to speak with him about his experience of breaking free from his traditional training and how he perceives his transition and the transition of others towards a BPS approach. Including how he manages the resistance, obstacles and opportunities to incorporating the BPS framework into clinical practice.I really this enjoyed talking with Jerry, it was really helpful to have insight from someone who has successfully made the tradition and is now immersed in BPS practice, teaching and research.This should be interesting to all MSK clinicians but especially those who are struggling to break free from the biomedical chains or perhaps are unsure or anxious about what a BPS future might hold. I bring you Dr Jerry Draper-Rodi.Find Jerry on Twitter and InstagramSubscribe to www.wordsmatter-education.com , and if you liked the podcast, you'll love the Words Matter online course in effective language and communication when managing back pain - ideal for all MSK therapists or students.Help the podcast grow and don't miss an episode- Subscribe, Rate and Share.Instagram @Wordsmatter_educationTwitter @WordsClinicalFacebook Words Matter - Improving Clinical Communication  ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Welcome to Episode 5 of The Words Matter Podcast.In this episode I spoke with Dr Kjartan Vibe Fersum. Kjartan is a Specialist Musculoskeletal Physiotherapist and a researcher. He divides his time between private practice in Bergen, in Norway and he is also an Associate Professor at University of Bergen.  His research interests lie in the diagnosis and management of musculoskeletal pain disorders and he lead two RCTs investigating the efficacy of Cognitive functional therapy for low back pain, published in The European Journal of Pain in 2013 and 2019.Kjartan also was part of the team that wrote the open access paper by Peter O'Sullivan et al., (2018) outlining CFT as a framework for disabling LBP here.He is also part of the international collaboration group pain-ed.com, which is an excellent resource that translates and communicates the latest pain research to the public and health care professionals.  I was really delighted and keen to speak to Kjartan. He’s been a key individual in the development, testing and teaching of CFT - which is perhaps the most cogent, coherent and comprehensive framework to guide therapists clinical reasoning  when helping people with LBP.In this episode we talk about the journey of CFT, and the core skills and principles which centre around communication and CFTs contribution to clinical MSK practice. We chatted about the role of more traditional MSK skills such Manual therapy.We also touched on the current evidence base of CFT, including his experience in leading two clinical trials intro the approach.Kajrtan was a fantastic guest. He shares his exceptional expertise both passionately and energetically, which I’m sure you’ll enjoy. I bring you Dr Kjartan Vibe Versum.Find Kjartan on Twitter and Instagram  Subscribe to www.wordsmatter-education.com , and check out the brilliant online course in effective language and communication when managing back pain to help you enhance your patient care with better communication.Liked the podcast? Then help it grow- Listen, Like, Rate and Share.Instagram @Wordsmatter_educationTwitter @WordsClinicalFacebook Words Matter - Improving Clinical Communication  ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

On this episode I spoke with Dr Noor Abdal, a physiotherapist who has a special interest in persistent pain.Noor and I both completed our PhD's around the same time at the University of Brighton, and were part of the same 'methodological group' employing constructivist grounded theory (GT) to try and figure things out. We resisted the temptation to launch into a discussion about GT and qualitative research (but a podcast is coming focusing on this topic...), but if you'd like to read more about GT see my paper here on what GT is all about.In this podcast we spoke about Noor’s clinical work as a Biopsychosocially orientated physiotherapist in Kuwait and how she’s integrating psychologically-informed practice in her management of patients with chronic back pain (CLBP).We also talked about her PhD research which explored illness identities amongst Kuwaiti women experiencing chronic low back pain (CLBP). She developed a grounded theory to describe and explain the impact of cultural, social and emotional experiences on women’s manifestations of CLBP and their behaviours towards it. We also chatted about how MSK clinicians can relate this theory to their clinical practice.This was almost a catch-up with an old friend in addition to the podcast. Find Dr Noor Abdal on Twitter on Instagram Subscribe to www.wordsmatter-education.com , and check out the online course in effective language and communication when managing back pain. Liked the podcast? Then help it grow- Listen, Like, Rate and Share.Instagram @Wordsmatter_educationTwitter @WordsClinicalFacebook Words Matter - Improving Clinical Communication  ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

In this episode of The Words Matter Podcast, Dr Oliver Thomson speaks with Dr Ben Darlow. Ben is a clinician, teacher and researcher. He works clinically as a Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy Specialist based in private practice in Wellington, New Zealand.His teaching and research are based in the Department of Primary Health Care and General Practice at the University of Otago. More about Ben's academic work. His research interests lie in the understanding and management of common musculoskeletal conditions like low back pain and osteoarthritis. here. Many of you will be aware of Ben’s excellent research into back pain beliefs; both his qualitative work such as his papers “The enduring impact of what clinicians say to patients with LBP” (see here), and “Easy to harm and hard to heal, patients view about the back” (see here), plus the development of the back pain attitudes questionnaire otherwise known as the BACK-PAQ tool, which is now widely used by researchers across the globe in the study of back pain(see here). His work features heavily in the Words Matter online course on effective language and communication in the management of back pain (details here). In this episode we talked about the nature, origins and importance of back pain beliefs. We dig down into the role of the clinician in co-structuring beliefs, narratives and frameworks with people experiencing back pain. We also explored the challenges and opportunities of providing diagnoses and explanations to people in pain. I was really excited to speak to Ben, he was way up on the list of people I wanted to have on the show and his work has been hugely transformative for my own clinical work and I know influential for many MSK colleagues.  Ben is a wealth of knowledge and able to relate his knowledge of the evidence to clinical practice in immensely engaging, passionate and accessible way. I bring You Dr Ben Darlow.Liked the podcast, then help it grow- Listen, like, rate and share.Subscribe to www.wordsmatter-education.com , and check out the online course in effective language and communication when managing back pain.Instagram @Wordsmatter_educationTwitter @WordsClinicalFacebook Words Matter - Improving Clinical Communication  ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Welcome to another episode of the Words Matter Podcast. This is an impromptu podcast given that the world is in the grip of the COVID19 pandemic, and we are all having to adjust to new ways of living, thinking and being- including how we practice as clinicians.Dr Oliver Thomson speaks with osteopath and  David Hohenshurz-Schmidt, an osteopath and PhD student in Pain Research, about how communication skills have now been thrust into the forefront of musculoskeletal and MT practice, given that we are now unable to touch their patients due to the pandemic.In this episode they spoke about the shift in skills necessary for manual therapists and MSK clinicians to conduct appointments remotely either online or via telephone, and thee requires a change in how clinicians (and patients) conceptualise and see value in all different aspects of the clinical practice, such as the nature of ‘treatment’, their therapeutic role and their professional identity.David is an osteopath and graduate of the University College of Osteopathy (UCO) in London, and he’s also currently in private clinical practice. He completed his MSc in Neuroscience from King's College London, where he focused on pain research using fMRI. He published his MSc research in Frontiers in Neuroscience Journal, not a bad start to a research career! See here for the full paper) He’s currently in the midst of a PhD at Imperial College London, where he’s part of the pain research group (lead by Prof. Andrew Rice here) investigating methods to improve how we assess effectiveness of non-drug, non-surgical therapies for pain, including manual therapies, CBT, body-mind therapies, acupuncture. Moe about David's research here. David and colleagues at UCO have developed a free webinar (see here) to offer advice and guidance for osteopaths and all MSK clinicians to move their clinical work remotely. It's a great resource and I found it extremely helpful for my own transition online. You can reach David on Twitter at @davidhosch Subscribe to www.wordsmatter-education.com for online courses and resources in communication for MSK clinicians. Instagram @Wordsmatter_education Twitter @WordsClinical Facebook Words Matter - Improving Clinical Communication ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

On this episode of the Words Matter Podcast, Dr Oliver Thomson spoke with Dr Thorvaldur (Valdi) Palsson. They talked about Valdi's excellent recent article (written with Ben Darlow, Greg Lehman and Samatha Bunzli) in Physical Therapy Journal titled "Changing the Narrative in Diagnosis and Management of Pain in the Sacroiliac Joint Area”. See full paper here.Manual and musculoskeletal therapies and educators have, over the years, placed huge emphasis on the specifics and SIJ movement, function, palpation from both a diagnostics point of view and from the point of view of matching up the specific SIJ movement or positional dysfunction with a specific technique to correct it. Some therapies and therapists have built their career and professional identities on the mystical phenomenon of the SIJ 'dysfunction. They talked about the the plausibility of manual testing and manual therapy to the SIJ, and the sorts of beliefs that practitioners and patients have in relation to the area. Then they go into the weeds, and discussed that by paying attention to the language that patients use provides us an opportunity to obtain interpretive portrayal of an individuals’ beliefs and experiences. They also spoke about why words matter in relation to the SIJ regions and language provides an opportunity for us to begin to help shape new beliefs and news experiences in people with LBP/SIJ pain.Subscribe to www.wordsmatter-education.com for online courses and resources in communication for MSK clinicians.Instagram @Wordsmatter_education Twitter @WordsClinical Facebook Words Matter - Improving Clinical Communication ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★