Professor Arianne Verhagen has launched her book “Evidence-based diagnostics of musculoskeletal disorders in primary care” in Australia, a first of its kind for Australian physiotherapists.

Professor Verhagen says that the text that brings together diagnosis based on patient case studies. “Up until now, musculoskeletal diagnosis books would start with the problem, but in the real world, a patient rarely walks in knowing what is wrong,” she says. “They just know they have knee pain for instance, and the physiotherapist needs to go about working out what’s the cause of the pain.”

The book was initially published in 2016 in Dutch before it was updated and translated into English, following the requests of several universities for a translated edition.

“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, statistically, will knee pain be arthritis? Or meniscus? Or a patellofemoral pain?” and how can I find out what it is?

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 gives firstly some ideas aboutthe frequency of the problem, 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.”

Co-authored by Jeroen Alessie, the book is currently recommended for Physiotherapy students and professionals 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.