Amy Jeffery

Physiotherapist and Team Lead for an award winning MDT CPPP for persistent low back pain. Cardiff based. Views my own.

[Lucy Dove @dovelucy]

Oxford University are seeking healthcare professionals with experience of working with people with sciatica and symptoms of leg weakness for a new study. Visit https://t.co/XCKcRSu4Kh

[Amy Jeffery @AmyThom667]

Thank you #NSN25 for having me today, it was a privilege to be able to share our CPPP with so many amazing physios. So impressed with all the presenters and @PeteOSullivanPT CFT work.

[National Spine Network @NatSpineNetwork]

*HURRY HURRY* #NSN25 is almost sold out! We're down to the final 20 or so places left to catch this stellar line-up for a great day of CPD, networking and fun! Book your place now to avoid disappointment! https://t.co/SPP1srgfte

[Peter O'Sullivan @PeteOSullivanPT]

The “future” pain clinician: Competencies needed to provide psychologically informed care - OPEN ACCESS
https://t.co/WKCvZElpcj
Interesting to get peoples perspectives on this.....

[Amy Jeffery @AmyThom667]

@marklaslett_NZ @adamdobson123 I had a patient with this narrative last week that stated the physio they saw told them to use a foam roller to push the disc back in.

[Amy Jeffery @AmyThom667]

@adamdobson123 @NatSpineNetwork Yes that would be great.

[Amy Jeffery @AmyThom667]

@gsingh1902 @NatSpineNetwork @ChrisNewtonPT @GeorgeMcNamee @Uhcw_MSkPhysio @Tommathews96 @C_A_Patterson @Ewan_Ablett @PeteOSullivanPT @kieranosull @jpcaneiro It was such an interesting session, thank-you!

[Adam Dobson @adamdobson123]

NHS BACKTracks is now live for public testing!!! 🤩

‘A platform designed to help people with back pain explore movement’.
👇👇👇
https://t.co/sQnBPNDN5D

We've aimed for simplicity, a contemporary feel, safety messaging, and less prescription. Pick your 'TRACKS' (exercises), compile your playlist, play some music(optional), and EXPLORE MOVEMENT.

For those wanting wrap around self-management or input from a health professional. Need an aide-memoire? No sweat, we’ve designed a wallet card for this.

There is a little more work to go before it's fully integrated into the South Tees Back Pain website but will link seamlessly with the NHS exercise studio and our NHS back pain booklets. 1⃣/2⃣

[Physio Matters @TPMPodcast]

MSKMag Issue 1 is OUT NOW!

Our New Year’s resolution was to shake up the MSK CPD game… again.

2013 - The Physio Matters Podcast
2017 - #TheBigRs
2020 - Therapy Live
2024 - MSKMag

[Adam Dobson @adamdobson123]

Clinician/LBP researcher spitting truth & hardly controversial information.

[National Spine Network @NatSpineNetwork]

The @WHO guidelines launch tomorrow. See you all there.

👇👇👇
https://t.co/8jNkYIS62Q

[Amy Jeffery @AmyThom667]

@PainCurious This is great Rob 👍

[National Spine Network @NatSpineNetwork]

📢 Registration is NOW OPEN for our #NSN2024 Annual Meeting which will be on 5 March at Millennium Point in Birmingham!

Its something really important this year.
'Health inequalities in spinal care: access, experience and outcomes'

Register below👇👇
https://t.co/FvZCbUGIXp

[Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) @NHSGIRFT]

Looking for a way to instantly access our new interactive pathway for suspected Cauda Equina Syndrome?
👇Scan (and save) the QR below to your phone or device, so it’s there whenever you need

(you can also click this link: https://t.co/7K8DWRXGUB)

[Giacomo Rossettini @GiacomoRoss86]

The Role of Patient-Practitioner Relationships in Placebo and Nocebo Phenomena

Great paper of @Colloca_Luana and colleagues.

https://t.co/lHlqanOqQi

#nocebo #pain #communication #context #placebo

[Keele University Impact Accelerator Unit @KeeleIAU]

The KeeleHealth website has a useful range of evidence based #backpain information for patients and healthcare professionals - click here to explore animations, leaflets, guidebooks, training and more - https://t.co/Q6GHCuOofD

[Christopher Tuckett MCSP @HealthPhysio]

Staff turnover is the 🐘 in the room for the #NHS currently.

We are too recruitment centric, and recruitment is expensive. 💸💸

Whereas we need to retain staff by delivering on the #PeoplePromise.

💲Do providers do the sums to explicitly put a tangible cost on turnover? 🤔

[Mark Kargela @MKargelaDPT]

Manual therapy was going to be my way of feeling like I belonged in my profession and that I was good enough

I came out of university, where I was exposed to an eclectic view of manual therapy where we learned Mulligan, Kaltenborn, Greenman/OMM/MET, McKenzie and others.

I was drawn toward manual therapy. It was a skill that I thought allowed a clinician to solve complex patient issues through exceptional skills you gained in your hands.

I spent the first 10 years of my career on a roller coaster with it. I would get letters and a dose of exposure to a group of clinicians firmly believing in whatever system I was learning and showering me with praise and confirmation bias

These results would soon wane, and I felt back at square one

I wanted to be great, and someone other clinicians referred their most challenging patients to

This was likely rooted in the feeling most of you are familiar with. The one where you feel inadequate or not enough. The one that keeps you up thinking about patient encounters at two in the morning.

I wanted to get rid of this feeling and feel like I belonged. That feeling at times grew very strong to the point I considered quitting the profession altogether more than once

Fellowship was supposed to be the culmination of my manual therapy training to where I was to obtain Jedi status and truly be able to secure my belonging

A major disappointment was seeing the complex patients I went into fellowship to figure out were also failing in the practices of my very accomplished mentors.

Two courses changed the course of my career and felt like they were the beginning of taking the weight off my shoulders. They were a course on pain science and one on how manual therapy works.

After fellowship Louis Gifford's Aches and Pains books also were huge for me. He recounted the same journey I felt like I was on.

He practiced and was mentored by THEE Geoff Maitland and saw complex patients struggle with a traditional manual therapy approach. I wasn't alone!

A massive A HA happened for me

I was already enough and adequate. The problem was that I was playing a team sport by myself

Manual therapy wasn't fixing anything but now was something that was an option to modulate pain not a must.

Deep dives into pain science helped me understand the complexity of what can impact the pain experience.

The complexity was located in the person in front of me and their story and was much more than millimeters of facet wiggle.

The only way I could understand this complexity was to get better at shutting up and giving the narrative a space to be told and my purposefully curious attention to be questioned.

I was asking about people's lives and not simply how their symptoms behaved or another question to interrogate their tissues.

It was emotional at times for both me and the patients. You hear horrible journeys that some people have walked before our interaction with them that can't help but tug at our emotions.

Opening a space for this narrative gave me the missing data from my encounters.

I could take this data and see if I could co-create a narrative where I played a guide and the patient and their valued goals took the role of hero of the story.
It has re-ignited my passion for what I do.

I love the privilege I have of being able to become part of another person's narrative and to serve as a guide to help them get back to living a life toward their valued goals

Patients I previously dreaded are now my favorite as it is now a challenge I greatly enjoy to find out what informs the presentation I see in front of me that earlier in my career would have had me calling the patient a difficult patient, a malingerer, an energy vampire, .... you get the point.

I don't feel pressure to have THE answer. I am comfortable giving options that I discuss with my teammate (the patient) that we can decide on together.

The morale of the story is that you are already enough.

You don't need to continuously chase the next technique or treatment to "fix someone"

I would argue a lot of our pain patients have the capacity to unlock a better and more fulfilling life inside them

These things have often been buried by a system that invalidates, scares, over-medicalizes, and flat-out doesn't often listen.

Learn how to receive and validate a narrative

Learn how to take this narrative and make sense of pain with someone

Position yourself as the guide by the side.

Great things will happen.

[Jonathan Hill @DrJonathanHill]

If you'd like to hear my Professorial inaugural lecture on "How can we improve primary care management of MSK pain?"... its here https://t.co/dy01rgWid8