More than one in four refugees and asylum-seekers in the UK are thought to have experienced torture in their countries of origin. Increasing numbers are presenting to NHS services with persistent pain, often of muscle, bone or joints (musculoskeletal). New research finds that UK healthcare services are not meeting their needs, and suggests that better ...

A programme of exercises for people with rheumatoid arthritis improves hand strength and function. The Strengthening and Stretching for Rheumatoid Arthritis of the Hand (SARAH) programme is recommended by NICE following positive results in a large clinical trial. Therapists were initially trained face-to-face to deliver the SARAH programme. To speed up its routine use in ...

A large trial of interventions for people with shoulder pain showed that they benefitted more from personalised exercise programmes supervised by physiotherapists than from an exercise leaflet and standard advice. It also showed that guiding shoulder injections using ultrasound provided no added benefit over the usual, non-guided approach to these injections. Pain associated with structures ...

Exercise referral schemes are designed for people with long term conditions that can be improved by exercise, such as raised blood pressure or mental health problems. They aim to encourage people to become more active, but evidence for the success of such schemes is mixed. This study evaluated the Welsh National Exercise Referral Scheme and ...

A common surgical approach used for hip replacements carries higher risks of worse outcomes and should not be routinely adopted by trainee surgeons, a new analysis suggests. The study found significantly worse outcomes associated with so-called lateral procedures to the hip joint, in which surgeons access the hip by detaching muscle from the side of ...

People with ongoing pain after knee replacement surgery may experience a sense of futility and believe nothing more can be done. A new study found that that one in five people report ongoing pain after knee replacement surgery, but many do not seek help in dealing with their pain. The researchers say that improvements in ...

Early weight-bearing in a below-knee rigid boot, a functional brace, following ruptured Achilles tendon can achieve similar results to traditional plaster casting. This NIHR-funded trial included 540 people, and after nine months there appeared to be no difference between the two treatments in terms of how well patients recovered from their injury. The functional brace ...

Fixing a displaced broken wrist with wires is as effective as fixation with locking plates in the long term. Wrist function and pain continue to improve in the five years following either operation, with no evidence of a difference between the two treatments. In 2014, a trial comparing the use of Kirschner wires and locking plates ...

Injecting a ruptured Achilles tendon with a small sample of a person’s own plasma, without the red blood cells, has no functional or other benefit. Plasma rich in platelets and white blood cells for the acute injury was compared with placebo. The NIHR-funded trial involved 230 adults with acute Achilles tendon rupture (the tendon which ...

More than 80% of total knee replacements can last for 25 years An NIHR-funded study showed that about 82% of total knee replacements and 70% of partial (unicompartmental) knee replacements last for 25 years. In 2017 there were 106,334 knee replacement procedures carried out in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. This research suggests people could be ...