On 15 December 2021, J.H.A.M. Mutsaers will defend his PhD dissertation, entitled: ‘Manual Therapy and Neck Pain - ‘neckspectations & pain platitudes’’.
- Promotor
- Promotor
- Co-promotor
- Date
- Wednesday 15 Dec 2021, 15:30 - 17:00
- Type
- PhD defence
- Space
- Senate Hall
- Building
- Erasmus Building
- Location
- Campus Woudestein
Neck pain is a common complaint most adults are familiar with. People with neck pain often consult a manual therapist, which is a specialized form of physical therapy. Manual therapy for neck pain is not uniform and varies a lot in clinical practice. It is unclear what mechanisms are responsible for that. One of the theories is that 'beliefs about pain' on the part of the manual therapist, and 'expectations about treatment content and results' on the part of the patient, are explanatory factors for that practice variation. This work researches how we can measure these ‘ beliefs about pain’ and ‘ patient expectancies’, and tries to unravel their influence on treatment success. This work found no, or very weak influence of ‘beliefs about pain’ and treatment outcome. The patient’s expectations also did not predict the outcome of manual therapy for neck pain. This work adds to the still mixed results in this field, which is an indicator that our insight in the dynamics between the thoughts of the care provider and the patient is still limited and needs further scientific attention.
The public defence will take place at the Senate Hall, 1st floor Erasmus Building, location campus Woudestein. The ceremony will begin exactly at 15.30 PM. In light of the solemn nature of the ceremony, we recommend that you do not take children under the age of 6 to the first part of the ceremony.
