Back and neck pain, knee osteoarthritis, and sports and occupational injuries such as tennis elbow will be targeted under a new National Health and Medical Research Council Program Grant awarded to a University of Queensland research team today.
Professor Paul Hodges of UQ’s School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences and Centre for Clinical Research Excellence in Spinal Pain, Injury and Health (CCRE SPINE) leads the team which has been awarded $7.57million NHMRC program funding to improve health outcomes through treatment management.
“Musculoskeletal pain and injury is a major health issue facing our ageing society,” Professor Hodges said.
“The cost in terms of health care and lost productivity is second only to cardiovascular disease.
“For example, low back pain is the single most common condition resulting in disability in Australia, accounting for more than 15 percent of disabilities.
“Neck pain affects 10 to 20 percent of people at any one time. Shoulder pain affects 15-30 percent of adults, while tennis elbow can impact on 20 percent of people in specific workplaces.
“In 2007, 7.8 percent of people suffered knee osteoarthritis, with a health expenditure of $2.03 billion.”
Professor Hodges said that these conditions were major contributors to the burden of musculoskeletal disorders.
“Alone, each of these conditions is a major public health problem: they are associated with significant pain and disability, contribute to workplace absenteeism, reduced productivity, and have a propensity to become chronic.
“Conservative non-drug treatment is the cornerstone of management of these conditions.
“However, there is considerable work to be done to identify the most appropriate and cost-effective conservative treatments within a multi-disciplinary framework.”
Professor Hodges said there was also a need to identify mechanisms resulting in effective treatments, and to determine why these conditions become persistent or why they recur in some individuals but not others.
UQ Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Max Lu congratulated Professor Hodges and his team on their success.
"This program grant will add to the already strong research effort in this area under the leadership of Professor Paul Hodges, to enable his team and collaborators to make breakthrough discoveries and innovative treatments," Professor Lu said.
The team brings together four of Australia’s leading researchers in the field from UQ and the University of Melbourne, including Professor Hodges, Professor Kim Bennell, Professor Gwendolen Jull and Professor Bill Vicenzino, their large multidisciplinary research teams, and their national and international collaborators.
Professor Lu said due to the magnitude of this problem and its rapid growth with the ageing of society, musculoskeletal disorders had been highlighted as a National Health Priority Area.
The current decade has been designated the Bone and Joint Decade by the World Health Organisation.
Media: Professor Paul Hodges, telephone 07 3365 2008 or 07 3365 4567 or Jan King at UQ Communications 0413 601 248
