Evidence based diagnostics of musculoskeletal disorders in primary care

Valid diagnostic strategies are the basis of good clinical care. This book provides an overview of the evidence that underpins history taking, physical examination, specific tests and diagnostic imaging in patients with musculoskeletal disorders that consult primary care.

Alongside this book there is a website presenting videos showing the up-to-date performance of diagnostics that are regarded valid together with their psychometric properties. In the introduction, we present various ways of clinical reasoning followed by three chapters on ‘validity’, ‘reproducibility’ and the differences between a single test compared to a combination of tests. Next the chapters each deal with the diagnostic of patients with low back pain, hip, knee, foot/ankle, neck, shoulder, elbow and hand/wrist pain. Each chapter starts with a case study and ends with a conclusion that reflects on the case study presented. In addition, in each chapter attention is paid to red flags (alarm signals) that could be an indicator of serious pathology.

Evidence based diagnostics of musculoskeletal disorders offers a wealth of information for physiotherapists, general practitioners, students and other people with professional interest in the actual evidence underpinning the diagnostic strategies in patients with musculoskeletal disorders.

Arianne P Verhagen is a physiotherapist, manual therapist and clinical epidemiologist by background. She received her PhD in 1999 and from 1999 to January 2018 she worked at the Erasmus University Medical Centre Rotterdam at the department of General Practice. From 2009 – 2014 she was also a professor ‘Diagnostics’ at the School of Physiotherapy of Avans University of Applied Sciences in Breda, where this book was initiated. Since February 2018 Arianne is the Head of Discipline and professor Musculoskeletal Research at the School of Physotherapy at UTS (University of Technology Sydney) in Australia.

Jeroen Alessie is physiotherapist, educational science & technologist and senior teacher at the School of Physiotherapy of Avans University of Applied Sciences in Breda.