UTS Physiotherapy’s Head of Discipline brings her case-based book to Australia.
Back in 2014, Professor Arianne Verhagen had an idea of creating a diagnosis book for physiotherapy students based on patient case studies.
Professor Verhagen says up until that point, musculoskeletal diagnosis books would start with the problem, but in the real world a patient rarely walks in knowing what is wrong. “They just know they have knee pain for instance, and the physio needs to go about working out what’s the cause of the pain.”
The book titled “Evidence-based diagnostics of musculoskeletal disorders in primary care” arrived in Australia just a few months ago. It was initially published in 2016 in Dutch and was translated into English after Professor Verhagen was approached by several universities wanting an English version her book.
“What makes this book helpful for students and practitioners is that it follows the real journey when a patient presents in your clinic,” says Professor Verhagen.
“For example the patient presents with knee pain, and then it follows that route - how often will it happen statistically that that knee pain is arthritis? Or is meniscus? Or is a patellofemoral pain?
“The book gives first some ideas about the frequency of the problem, and risk factors, and prognostic factors, and then I describe which tests can help you to decide whether it's meniscus or arthritis, or whether it's a patellofemoral pain or a meniscus. The case studies are evidence-based - so how much evidence is there to support that decision.”
Each chapter begins with a case study and ends with a conclusion that reflects the case study presented, along with complementary videos of current performance of diagnostics.
The book co-authored by Jeroen Alessie is currently recommended for UTS Master of Physiotherapy students and can be purchased from Amazon.
Arianne Verhagen is the Head of Discipline at the School of Physiotherapy at the Graduate School of Health and is an experienced physiotherapist, manual therapist and clinical epidemiologist.