Physiotherapy practices in the clinical assessment of lateral elbow tendinopathy: An international survey

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Heales, L
Vicenzino, B
Bisset, L
Bateman, M
Hill, C
Kean, C
Spyve, A
Jaques, A
Sansom, F
Lowe, M
Obst, S
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2024
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Abstract

Background and Purpose Understanding physiotherapy practices is important to identify variations from empirical evidence and highlight requirements for training. This survey explored international physiotherapy practices for assessment of lateral elbow tendinopathy (LET).

Methods Two hundred ninety-nine surveyed physiotherapists from eight member countries of the International Federation of Manual and Orthopaedic Physical Therapists completed the survey. Respondents rated their frequency of use (never, rarely, sometimes, often, and always) for items related to: patient history; diagnostic tests; grip and upper limb strength; cervical and neurological assessment; and medical imaging. To establish practices, the five response categories were dichotomised into routine practice (often, always) and not-routine practice (sometimes, rarely, never). A response rate of ≥70% for each dichotomy was used to determine whether an assessment item was deemed routine practice or not, with items not meeting either criterion considered neither routine nor not-routine practice.

Results Most respondents were from United States (63%). The ‘chair pick up test’, ‘cervical special tests’, and ‘plain radiograph’ met our criteria for not routine practice (i.e., 70%, 72%, and 71%, respectively). All other assessment items did not meet the criteria to be considered routine or not-routine practice.

Conclusion The chair pick-up test, cervical spine special tests (e.g., Spurling's test), and plain radiography appear to not be routinely used in the assessment of LET. The finding that no assessment technique met the criteria for routine use may imply that physiotherapists adopt a nuanced approach to selecting clinical assessment items as opposed to routinely applying tests.

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Physiotherapy Research International

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29

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4

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© 2024 The Author(s). Physiotherapy Research International published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

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Heales, L; Vicenzino, B; Bisset, L; Bateman, M; Hill, C; Kean, C; Spyve, A; Jaques, A; Sansom, F; Lowe, M; Obst, S, Physiotherapy practices in the clinical assessment of lateral elbow tendinopathy: An international survey, Physiotherapy Research International, 2024, 29 (4), pp. e2125

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