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An unrecognised masquerader: a retrospective review of people presenting to musculoskeletal physiotherapy with undiagnosed spondyloarthritis.
McCrum C, Kenyon K, Cleaton J, Dudley T. An unrecognised masquerader: a retrospective review of people presenting to musculoskeletal physiotherapy with undiagnosed spondyloarthritis. Physiotherapy. 2019;105:e102-e3. https://www.physiotherapyjournal.com/article/S0031-9406(18)30423-1/abstract
Demonstrated the importance of physiotherapists in early recognition and referral of axial SpA. Exploration of 263 people (age 17- 69 years) diagnosed with spondyloarthritis during the period 1990 – 2016, who had received outpatient physiotherapy care prior to their diagnosis. Average time from initial physiotherapy visit to diagnosis with SpA was 6.4 years. The most common clinical diagnostic codes assigned to these episodes of care included back pain (49.6%), shoulder (11.1%), knee (8.5%), neck (7.7%), ankle/foot (4.3%), tendonitis (4.2%), joint pain (3.4%), osteoarthritis (3.4%) and sacroiliac joint (2%). 44% received 3 or more physiotherapy episodes prior to diagnosis – number of contacts within each episode ranging from 3 (47 people) to 58 (1 person), a median of 11 contacts per episode (10 people).