Three projects of Fontys are receiving large, four-year grants within the RAAK-PRO regime of SIA. It is about the projects Progress with Electric Transport in Cities, Printing makes Sense and e-Exercise lower back pain. Fontys submitted six full applications, nationwide there were 64. 27 applications were honoured.
In a short series we highlight the three successful applications. Today: e-Exercise Lower back pain.
Read about all the honoured Fontys-projects here.
” The patient is given more control over his lower back pain.”Tjarco Koppenaal, Teacher at the Fontys Paramedic University
E-Exercise lower back pain
Lower back pain is one of the most common complaints in the physiotherapy practice. The social-economic impact of it is big. Physiotherapy can offer a solution, but the biggest problem is that the lifestyle of the patient needs to change for the treatment to really be effective. And that is often missing.
The project E-Exercise Lower back pain receives the subsidy for research on ‘blended’ physiotherapy for people with low back pain. Blended physiotherapy is a combination of face-to-face sessions and an online program with instruction videos, information modules and a module to stimulate physical activity. Tjarco Koppendaal, teacher at the Fontys Paramedic University, is going to work on this project the next few years as a PhD student. He is going to find ways to give the patient more control over his complaint and his recovery. “The combination of our blended care program and the possibilities to hereby offer the physiotherapeutic customized care are expected to promote the patient’s own responsibility for his own health and therapy compliance. This way the patient gets, as we expect, more control over his lower back pain and the outcome of the physiotherapeutic treatment will be more future-proof and will be able to prevent new periods of complaints”.
The workshop is conducted within the Academic Workplace primary Physiotherapy. This is a structural cooperation in research, care innovation and education between Fontys Paramedic University, University Utrecht, UMC Utrecht and the Rijn Julius Health Centers in Leiden. Among other things, the Foundation for Health Centers Eindhoven, VU Amsterdam and the Dutch Association for Physical Therapists are also participating in the e-Exercise Lower Back pain consortium. The project is led by dr. Martijn Pisters.
Practice-oriented research at universities
RAAK-PRO focuses on strengthening the practice-oriented research at universities, in cooperation with the professional practice, and on intensifying the relations with other knowledge institutions.
The available budget for this call was € 9,8 million and a maximum of € 700.000,- could be requested per RAAK-PRO project. SIA has decided to raise the budget of the call to €17,5 million in response to the quantity of high-quality applications, which made is possible for 25 research proposals to be honoured.
