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Prof. Martin Underwood - University of Warwick. Coventry, , UNITED KINGDOM

Prof. Martin Underwood

Professor, Warwick Medical School - Warwick Clinical Trials Unit | University of Warwick

Coventry, UNITED KINGDOM

Martin Underwood researches improved diagnosis and management of musculoskeletal disorders, particularly back pain and osteoarthritis.

Areas of Expertise (5)

Medicine

Back Pain

Musculoskeletal Disorders

Osteoarthritis

Chronic Headaches

Selected Media Appearances (5)

Headache and backache strongly linked according to new study

Dagoretti News  online

2019-11-06

Martin Underwood, a researcher at the Warwick Medical School, comments on the results: “We found that the odds were about twice as high: in both cases, you have about twice as much chance of having headaches or chronic low back pain in the presence of the other. This is very interesting because generally these were seen as separate disorders and then managed by different staff, but this suggests that there may be, at least for some people, a little commonality in what is causing the problem...”

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Headache, back pain linked In new review

Medical Daily  online

2019-09-30

As per Medical News Today, Prof. Martin Underwood from Warwick Medical School said that "in most of the studies, we found that the odds were about double — either way, you're about twice as likely to have headaches or chronic low back pain in the presence of the other..."

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Link found between chronic headache and back pain

Medical News Today  online

2019-09-28

This meant that the researchers were unable to pool the data in a combined statistical analysis. However, Prof. Martin Underwood notes, "[i]n most of the studies, we found that the odds were about double — either way, you're about twice as likely to have headaches or chronic low back pain in the presence of the other"...

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Persistent headache or back pain 'twice as likely' in the presence of the other

Science Daily  online

2019-09-19

Professor Martin Underwood, from Warwick Medical School, said: "In most of the studies we found that the odds were about double -- either way, you're about twice as likely to have headaches or chronic low back pain in the presence of the other. Which is very interesting because typically these have been looked as separate disorders and then managed by different people. But this makes you think that there might be, at least for some people, some commonality in what is causing the problem. "There may be something in the relationship between how people react to the pain, making some people more sensitive to both the physical causes of the headache, particularly migraine, and the physical causes in the back, and how the body reacts to that and how you become disabled by it. There may also be more fundamental ways in how the brain interprets pain signals, so the same amount of input into the brain may be felt differently by different people...

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Back pain: The simple way to combat pain in your back

Express  online

2019-05-23

Martin Underwood, professor at Warwick medical school said: “Nearly everybody gets back pain at some point in their life....

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Selected Articles (5)

Obstacles to returning to work with chronic pain: in-depth interviews with people who are off work due to chronic pain and employers


BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders

2019 The global burden of chronic pain is growing with implications for both an ageing workforce and employers. Many obstacles are faced by people with chronic pain in finding employment and returning to work after a period of absence. Few studies have explored obstacles to return-to-work (RTW) from workers’ and employers’ perspectives. Here we explore views of both people in pain and employers about challenges to returning to work of people who are off work with chronic pain.

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OARSI guidelines for the non-surgical management of knee, hip, and polyarticular osteoarthritis


Osteoarthritis and Cartilage

2019 To update and expand upon prior Osteoarthritis Research Society International (OARSI) guidelines by developing patient-focused treatment recommendations for individuals with Knee, Hip, and Polyarticular osteoarthritis (OA) that are derived from expert consensus and based on objective review of high-quality meta-analytic data.

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How common is imaging for low back pain in primary and emergency care? Systematic review and meta-analysis of over 4 million imaging requests across 21 years


British Journal of Sports Medicine

2019 To (1) estimate the proportion of patients seeking care for low back pain (LBP) who are imaged and (2) explore trends in the proportion of patients who received diagnostic imaging over time. We also examined the effect of study-level factors on estimates of imaging proportion.

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A Randomized Trial of Progesterone in Women with Bleeding in Early Pregnancy


The New England Journal of Medicine

2019 Bleeding in early pregnancy is strongly associated with pregnancy loss. Progesterone is essential for the maintenance of pregnancy. Several small trials have suggested that progesterone therapy may improve pregnancy outcomes in women who have bleeding in early pregnancy.

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Inclusion and exclusion criteria used in non-specific low back pain trials: a review of randomised controlled trials published between 2006 and 2012


BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders volume

2018 Low back pain is a common health complaint resulting in substantial economic burden. Each year, upwards of 20 randomised controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating interventions for non-specific low back pain are published. Use of the term non-specific low back pain has been criticised on the grounds of encouraging heterogeneity and hampering interpretation of findings due to possible heterogeneous causes, challenging meta-analyses. We explored selection criteria used in trials of treatments for nsLBP.

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