Alleluja!
It is a really good feeling to see clinicians to raise such questions. I
have been trying to teach evidence-based electrotherapy in our university
for the past two years. It led only to animosity from fellow members of
staff, frustration of the students and raised eyebrows from the clinical
supervisors.
My efforts to gather evidence has yielded clinically usefull and
relevant information only in the case of acupuncture, TENS and Lasers.
There are some stuff in ultrasound, but this is only in relation to wound
healing and never on pain. In the case of PEME and interferential with
the exception of the Moffet et al and the Johnson paper in physiotherapy
respectively, there is very little else (all the literature in IFT is
related to pelvic floor stimulation in urinary incontinence).
This is not the most important message however. The edge of the razor
here is that the clinical and academic environment are NOT addressing the
matter of evidence based Practice in reallity, they treat it only as a
paper exercise. The main argument frequently posed is that if we adhered
only to EBP, we would be running 6 week courses in Physiotherapy.
To add in the confusion, we are prepared to embark on anything someone
has recently introduced and apply it in our practice on the basis that we
did the course the previous weekend. No questions, no doubt, only the
wise words of the tutor are our guide to clinical application.
I would be most interested to follow this argument with all the
participating colleagues. Congratulations to Nikky for raising the issue,
it takes guts and she appears to have some!
Respectfully,
Panos Barlas, BSc(Hons)PDD, DPhil, MCSP, SRP, LicAc
Lecturer
Department of Physiotherapy
School of Health and Social Sciences,
Coventry University,
Priory Street,Coventry, CV1 5FB
Tel: +44- (0)1203- 838980
Fax: +44- (0)1203- 838020
E-mail: [log in to unmask]
On Thu, 24 Sep 1998, Marion Trew wrote:
> Hello Nikki
> I would be interested in the replies you get and particularly in knowing (if
> people give you that information) whether an electrotherapy approach has had
> no proper research evidence to support it or whether it has damming evindence
> against it. I am curious about whether we are stopping using some treatments
> because the manufacturers are persuading us to buy different more expensive
> machines even though the older cheaper treatments have not yet been proved to
> be useless. Conversely it may be that we are stopping using some equipment
> because it has been shown to be ineffective.
>
> My worst fear is that there will be very little 'proper' evidence supporting
> anything and that we therefore decide to use the equipment or not to use it
> simply on whim.
>
> Could you post a summary of replies you get on the list
>
> Many thanks
>
> Marion Trew
> Oxford Brookes University
>
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > Our department has lots of electrical equipment.
> >
> > We are looking into the evidence to support the use of treatments
> > such as Pulsed Short Wave Diathermy and Interferential.
> >
> > We found some support for Ultrasound, but not much for anything
> > else.
> >
> >If anyone knows of any research evidence that supports any electrotherapy
> >treatment please let me know.
> >
> > thankyou
> >
> > Nicky Mackenzie
> > Snr Physiotherapist
> > City Hospital NHS Trust
> > Birmingham
> >
> >
> >
> >--
> >Another gem from the ZapEmail default signatures file.
> >Computer: a device designed to speed and automate errors.
> >
>
>
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