Most of the time when someone is dealing with pain, they want to know why. However, when it comes to healthcare, it’s a business and sending people out for more imaging etc. is part of that business. So, it’s great to see a doctor putting out the kind of information that is presented in this article.

Sometimes our joints just hurt, and it’s ok not to know why – Howard J. Luks MD

With all the information being thrown at us on a daily basis (especially in the last couple of years) we can get pretty overwhelmed. So, how do we know what works well for us personally in all this information for sustainable well-being? Here are some tips:

Nailing The Basics Is Simple Not Easy—The Growth Equation Manifesto – Brad Stulberg & Steve Magness

There is many a “myth” around our profession (in fact we’ve written about several of them). However, quite often when we learn that some of the things we’ve been telling patients isn’t true it can be quite disheartening. But as this ebook tells us…don’t lose heart, we are still doing some great things.

5 Myths and Truths about Massage Therapy Letting Go Without Losing Heart – Tracy Walton

Is the medical system lacking humanity? Well, with this article coming from someone who has dealt with persistent pain for most of their life and being put through the medical system, I listen when they talk about healthcare. So, yes, I’d say we need to put more humanity back in healthcare.

We Need to Put Humanity Back Into Healthcare – Keith Meldrum

Getting a good health history is a really important part of what we do. However, there are times where even with a good history we may not be able to rule everything out and in turn could have something confusing happen with a person on our table. This is just one of those situations:

Medical Mystery: A spa day with lasting consequences for US professor – Sandra G Boodman

We quite often highlight things around mental health but to this day I don’t think we give enough attention to athletes and the toll mental health can take on them. This is a great example of how a professional athlete is using their platform to raise awareness around this.

Tyson Fury opens up on his mental health: ‘I have been unwell all my life. I didn’t know what it was’ – Kevin Garside

No matter what part of healthcare you work in, informed consent is a crucial part of the patient/therapist interaction. What we see here is a healthcare provider giving treatments with no evidence behind them. Unfortunately, we see this regularly in our profession with many of the narratives behind some modalities that are offered as continuing education. This should be a warning to all of us in healthcare about informed consent and proper treatment.

Naturopath who gave vitamin IVs to mental health patient without doctors’ knowledge faces renewed probe – Bethany Lindsay

We often preach about evidence-based practice and the importance of incorporating research into practice. But it turns out this is even an issue with doctors and this questions their ability to deliver effective care. While we often preach that we can do better as a profession, turns out all healthcare professions need to do better as well.

How doctors are betraying the Hippocratic oath – Ian A Harris & Rachelle Buchbinder

It’s not often that pain science is applied to athletes but in this study (which highlights the work of our friend Morten Hogh) it argues that, in the context of sports medicine, pain and injury are two distinct entities and shouldn’t be lumped together.

Why Pain Doesn’t Always Mean You’re Injured – Alex Hutchinson

What do we do with the initial information we receive when a new person comes to see us? Well, there are several things and this article gives some great advice on how to proceed.

Making First Contact: What To Do With All That Information! Part 1 – Bronnie Lennox Thompson

We are continually promoting self-care to our people who come to see us. However, self-care can mean different things to different people, and self-love should be included as part of our human experience.

Self-Care and Self-Love – Pearl Dar

The more awareness we have around trauma and pain, the more we start to (hopefully) understand what a person is going through. However, there are differences between how women’s trauma recovery differs from men along with some new research to show us why.

Same injury, different brain – Hanae Armitage

Are the interventions we use with our patients the same as what is used with Olympic-level athletes? Should they be? Perhaps the intervention we use isn’t as important as the actual support we give to people.

Use the tricks Elite athletes use to get ahead! – Richard McIlmoyle

As it is with so many things, what we once thought we knew…perhaps wasn’t quite right. This holds true with some new information coming out on running injuries, so if you treat runners in your clinic, this article should be hugely beneficial.

What We Think We Know About What Causes Running Injuries Might Be Wrong – Richard A Lovett

We’re big fans of graded exercise around here (heck we even teach some courses on the topic) but as it is with most things in our profession, nothing is ever a one-size-fits-all. Such is the case for those who have myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome as the new NICE guideline recommendations are showing us that graded exercise should not be recommended for this population anymore.

Graded exercise therapy ‘should no longer be recommended for people with ME’ – Jane Kirby