Chris Tuckett hails 'Hip and knee pain disorders: Integrating manual therapy and exercise'

Hip and knee pain disorders: Integrating manual therapy and exercise

Editors: Benoy Mathew, Carol Courtney and César Fernández-de-las-Peñas 

Publisher: Handspring Publishing

Price: £56

ISBN: 9781913426132

When this new textbook arrived, I was immediately struck by its heft. A browse through the contents page quickly showed me that it makes a significant contribution to the musculoskeletal literature. While I can, of course, only speak for myself, ‘hips’ have always brought an additional fear-factor to any of my assessments due to their inherent complexity. Thus, receiving a fully up-to-date book that attempts to clarify this body-part was welcome.

The text is neatly and helpfully broken up into three distinct sections

• hip and knee pain disorders: common pathologies are discussed
• clinical examination of hip and knee pain disorders: relevant detail offered on how to perform evidence-based assessments
• multidisciplinary management of hip and knee pain disorders: here the selection box of treatment options is discussed

Pragmatic approach

Within each of these over-arching sections there are chapters that chunk the text down into more digestible components, which and allows for easy retrieval when you want to head directly to a specific topic. Books of this nature are rarely read in their entirety in one sitting, and instead readers head for the section they require at any one time, and the layout of this text facilitates this approach.

The book includes contributions from a wealth of clinical and academic peers, which only adds further to the value and reliability of the knowledge imparted. Research is referred to throughout with a clear acknowledgement that the current evidence base, as it stands, can only get a clinician so far and we should not be too hasty in discounting clinical experience and patient reports. This pragmatic approach to the evidence base will appeal to those clinicians and therapists who advocate for the utilisation of manual therapy and ‘joint-biased’ interventions. On the other hand, it might needle (pun intended!) those staunchly ‘hands-off’ colleagues.

I sense the textbook navigates these potentially choppy waters diplomatically and while it does explicitly acknowledge this ongoing debate, it is happy to declare that ‘passive’ interventions should be used as part of a multi-modal therapy programme. This suggestion might still be too strong for some who might feel ‘should’ might be replaced with ‘could’, but I welcome the book taking a more definite stance, and, again, it recognises that the evidence is conflicting.

The emphasis on the importance of communication is a particular highlight of the book, which, for me, provides clear guidance on what ‘good’ communication may look like in a clinical setting and offers practical advice on where clinicians may seek to tweak their own practice for the better.

'Slight criticism'

Like previous clinical texts from the publishers Handspring, the chapters make liberal use of clear and informative pictures and graphics which helpfully add further context or instruction. These were particularly helpful in the exercise and clinical assessment sections that naturally lend themselves to the use of imagery. And this is also the part whereby I have a slight criticism.

In both this text and the recent Handspring publication titled The Shoulder: Theory and Practice – which I also reviewed for PhysioUpdate – images of clinicians or models with black or brown skin are mostly absent. I appreciate that diversity and ethnicity cannot be reduced to simple skin colour, but with the known lack of diversity within the allied professions, and the evidence that those from ‘ethnically minoritised’ backgrounds may feel excluded from healthcare, I believe that we need to be more proactive in ensuring we include representative imagery.

Aside from this, the book is a comprehensive, well-researched and accessibly written text that will prove invaluable to any clinician concerned with the accurate assessment and treatment of hip and knee conditions.

Chris Tuckett is a physiotherapist and a director of allied health professions at an NHS Trust

Twitter: @HealthPhysio

To read Chris’s review of The Shoulder: Theory and practice, click