North Staffordshire arthritis suffers to be involved in major new research
Local people with arthritis are to play a major part in research at Keele University which could have a significant impact on the way patients are treated across the country.
They will be involved in three new studies to be funded by the Arthritis Research Campaign (arc) to the tune of £500,000 which will be carried out by physiotherapy researchers.
Osteoarthritis affects more than two million people in the UK, causing stiff, painful joints particularly among older people. The Primary Care Musculoskeletal Research Centre at Keele is one of the leading UK centres in for research aimed at making a practical difference to the daily lives of people with arthritis and other common musculoskeletal disorders, and has already run six arc-funded clinical trials on local people.
Now the charity has awarded three new grants aimed at helping to improve treatment for people with osteoarthritis in their hands and knees, and neck and back pain.
Osteoarthritis in the hands can cause considerable pain and frustration among sufferers affecting their everyday life, preventing them from looking after themselves, and compounded by a lack of appropriate information and advice from the medical profession.
arc senior lecturer and academic physiotherapist Dr Krysia Dziedzic will be running a trial involving over 250 people with hand osteoarthritis in three GP practices in north Staffordshire and central Cheshire. The trial will investigate different approaches aimed at improving hand pain, disability and quality of life over a six month period. The study will involve specially trained occupational therapists and local GPs.
Colleague Melanie Holden, also a research physiotherapist, has meanwhile been awarded an Allied Health Professionals Training Fellowship over two years by the charity to find more effective ways of making sure that people with knee pain start and then continue with exercise and physical activity. Research shows that exercise delivered by physiotherapists helps reduce pain and reduce functional activities, but that the benefits don’t last because people find it difficult to keep up their exercises.
Over the past two years Ms Holden has worked on a study to seek the opinions of both patients and physiotherapists about the role of exercise for knee pain in older adults. The fellowship will enable her to develop this work further in finding ways to improve the long-term benefit from exercise. The results of her research could have a substantial impact on the way that knee pain is treated, helping people with knee pain to take up – and most importantly carry on - with exercise and physical activity.
A third member of the team, Jonathan Hill, has been appointed to a five-year arc lectureship in musculoskeletal physiotherapy. His research will contribute to the back and neck research programme at Keele, specifically looking at which patients do best with particular therapies, and targeting treatment accordingly.
His post will strengthen the centre’s collaboration with its NHS partners, the North Staffordshire Primary Care Research Consortium, and lead to the implementation of research findings into physiotherapy clinical practice.
