Professor Peter O'Sullivan
Specialist Musculoskeletal Physiotherapist & John Curtin Distinguished Professor, Curtin University, Perth, Australia
Peter is a John Curtin Distinguished Professor at the School of Allied Health Sciences at Curtin University and a Specialist Musculoskeletal Physiotherapist where he holds a 0.5 FTE position. He is internationally recognised as a leading clinician, researcher and educator in musculoskeletal pain disorders. With his team he has developed a novel management approach for people disabling low back pain – called ‘cognitive functional therapy’. This treatment has demonstrated efficacy in numerous clinical trials, including a recent landmark trial published in The Lancet.
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With his team he has published more than 345 scientific papers, written numerous book chapters and has been keynote speaker at over 120 national and international conferences. Peter also consults at bodylogic.physio where he reviews people with disabling musculoskeletal pain disorders.
Peter’s passion is to bridge the gap between research and practice – in order to empower researchers, educators and clinicians in the provision of person-centred care to people in pain.
Peter’s passion is to bridge the gap between research and practice – in order to empower researchers, educators and clinicians in the provision of person-centred care to people in pain.
Cognitive Functional Therapy for People with Disabling Low Back Pain
Low back pain is the leading cause of disability worldwide. After triaging patients with serious pathology for specific medical care, guidelines call for care that supports patients to self-manage their condition, targeting physical and psychosocial barriers to recovery. Cognitive Functional Therapy is a person-centred behavioural approach that coaches people with disabling low back pain to self-manage their condition. It uses a multidimensional clinical reasoning framework to identify modifiable factors relevant to each individual to individualise care. The RESTORE clinical trial published in The LANCET demonstrated large and sustained clinical effects with significant cost savings for CFT compared to usual care in people with disabling low back pain. This talk with outline CFT, the training of clinicians to deliver CFT in the RESTORE trial and what the results mean for clinical practice.
The Low Back Pain Clinical Care Standard
The low back pain clinical care standard was released late 2022 by the Australian Commission of safety and quality in health care. This was due to the large disability burden associated with low back pain and care that is discordant to the guidelines. The standard has 8 quality indicators that cover: triage for serious patholoy, screening for psychosocial risk factors, reserving imaging for people with signs of serious pathology, evidence informed education and advice, encouraging self management and physical activity, targeting physical and psychological barriers to recovery and referral when a patient is not responding to treatment. The talk with outline the standard and the barriers and enabler to implementation.