Alice Kvåle

• Dr.philos.
• Professor emerita at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences

Objectives: Both physical and psychosocial risk factors contributing to musculoskeletal disorders occur in the professional nursing group, and previous literature suggested that their interaction may increase the risk of musculoskeletal pain among nurses. The aim of the study was to examine perceived workload and stress as well as physical finding...

Background Workers exposed to bullying often report musculoskeletal symptoms. In this study we have clinically evaluated the prevalence and nature of musculoskeletal dysfunction among a group of workers exposed to bullying and studied the relationship between clinical findings and self-reported musculoskeletal and mental symptoms. Materials and me...

Background and purpose: Norwegian Psychomotor Physiotherapy (NPMP) has been an established treatment approach for more than 50 years, mostly in the Scandinavian countries, usually applied to patients with widespread and long-lasting musculoskeletal pain and/or psychosomatic disorders. Few studies have investigated the outcomes of NPMP, and no rando...

Background and objectives There is limited research on the relationship between commonly used outcome measures, pain duration and work status. The objective of this study was to examine this relationship in different groups of patients with low back pain (LBP). Methods This is a multicentre cross-sectional study. Patients with LBP (n = 141) betwee...

Background: The Pain Attitudes and Beliefs Scale (PABS) for physiotherapists aims to differentiate between clinicians' biomedical and biopsychosocial treatment orientations regarding nonspecific low back pain (LBP). Objective: To study the content validity of the Norwegian PABS by following international guidelines: exploring its relevance, compre...

Objective The aim of this study was to compare two physiotherapy interventions following lumber disc surgery regarding effect on pain, functioning and fear of movement. Methods This study is a prospective randomized controlled study. When admitted to hospital for first time lumbar disc surgery, the participants were randomized to one of two post‐o...

Background – The study was designed to examine whether patients exposed to workplace bullying have clinically evident dysfunction in their musculoskeletal system. Furthermore, we wanted to explore the relationship between clinical findings and self-reported data on mental and musculoskeletal symptoms in the included patients. Methods – Targets of w...

We thank for the opportunity to respond to Fernandez et al. concerns that readers may have been misguided about the reasonable likelihood of a “false positive” result from the 3‐year follow‐up of our trial (Vibe Fersum et al., 2019). While we agree, and had highlighted in the manuscript, that there is risk of bias of the 3‐year treatment effect due...

Objectives This randomized controlled trial investigated the efficacy of cognitive functional therapy (CFT) compared with manual therapy and exercise (MT‐EX) for people with non‐specific chronic low back pain (NSCLBP) at 3‐year follow‐up. Methods 121 patients were randomized to CFT (n=62) or MT‐EX (n=59). 3‐year data were available for 30 (48.4%)...

Background: The Pain Attitudes and Beliefs Scale (PABS) for Physical Therapists aims to measure clinicians' biomedical and biopsychosocial treatment orientations regarding nonspecific low back pain. Objective: The objective of this study was to assess whether the PABS can differentiate between subgroups of physical therapists hypothesized to dif...

Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate differences in pain, risk profile, self-reported and tested function between health care workers and school- and kindergarten workers with musculoskeletal pain and to examine differences in pain and function when the two vocational groups were categorised according to risk profile and pain category....

Background and aim: There is evidence that clinicians' pain attitudes and beliefs are associated with the pain beliefs and illness perceptions of their patients and furthermore influence their recommendations for activity and work to patients with back pain. The Pain Attitudes and Beliefs Scale (PABS) is a questionnaire designed to differentiate b...

Background Norwegian Psychomotor Physiotherapy (NPMP) has been an established treatment approach for more than 50 years, although mostly in the Scandinavian countries, and is usually applied to patients with widespread and long-lasting musculoskeletal pain and/or psychosomatic disorders. Few studies have been investigating outcome of NPMP and no ra...

Background and purpose: The Pain Attitudes and Beliefs Scale for Physiotherapists (PABS-PT) is a self-administered instrument developed to assess the strength of two possible treatment orientations of physiotherapists towards the management of low back pain. The aim of this study was to translate the PABS-PT into Norwegian from the original 36-ite...

Pregnant women with pelvic girdle pain (PGP) often experience functional difficulties, in particular walking difficulties. Currently, however, there is a lack of validated performance- orientated outcome measures available for use in this population. The Timed Up and Go (TUG) test and Ten- metre Timed Walk Test (10 mTWT) are two short- distance wal...

The aim of this study was to explore employees’ and supervisors’ experiences with a brief functional evaluation for employees with musculoskeletal disorders on short-term sick leave or working despite complaints. Health-care workers in Bergen municipality, Norway, underwent a functional evaluation in 2012–2013. Four weeks later, they returned a sho...

The aims of this study were to present a newly developed clinical tool for examination of physical aberrations in different patient groups, and examine the degree to which this new instrument, the Global Body Examination (GBE), can discriminate between healthy people and patients. Two physiotherapists independently examined 132 individuals (34 heal...

Pregnant women with pelvic girdle pain (PGP) often experience functional difficulties, in particular walking difficulties. Currently, however, there is a lack of validated performance-orientated outcome measures available for use in this population. The Timed Up and Go (TUG) test and Ten-metre Timed Walk Test (10mTWT) are two short-distance walking...

There is a lack of functional objective tests available to measure functional status in women with pelvic girdle pain (PGP). The purpose of this study was to establish test-retest and intertester reliability of the Timed Up and Go (TUG) test and Ten-metre Timed Walk Test (10mTWT) in pregnant women with PGP. A convenience sample of women was recruit...

The aim of this study was to describe self-reported and physically tested function in health care workers with musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) and to examine how function was associated with work participation. A cross-sectional study was conducted. 250 health care workers attended an evaluation where self-reported and physical function were measu...

Background and purpose: Persistent dizziness and balance problems have been reported in some patients with unilateral vestibular pathology. The purpose of this case series was to address the examination and treatment of musculoskeletal dysfunction in patients with unilateral vestibular hypofunction. Case description: The musculoskeletal system w...

Background: Non-specific chronic low back pain disorders have been proven resistant to change, and there is still a lack of clear evidence for one specific treatment intervention being superior to another. Methods: This randomized controlled trial aimed to investigate the efficacy of a behavioural approach to management, classification-based cognit...

Objectives: To develop new scales within palpation of muscle and skin domains based on 16 items from the Global Physiotherapy Examination and 46 items from the Comprehensive Body Examination [CBE], and investigate how well these new scales would discriminate between healthy individuals and different groups of patients, compared to the original meth...

Schematic overview of the four different components of the CB-CFT treatment.

Displays an overview of the randomized subjects (n = 121) and how they spread out in the different categories.

Displays an overview of the multidimensional classification system. This system is guided by a clinical reasoning process that considers the presence and dominance of different factors, allowing for patient-centred targeted intervention.

Background and aims: Assessment of respiration is important in medicine and physical therapy. As respiration is multifaceted, we need several specific examination methods. The purpose of this study was to develop a method for examination of visible respiratory movements, by extracting from two examinations the items with best ability to discriminat...

The dearth of information on the pain experience of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) calls for a more comprehensive understanding of pain in this population. The Non-Communicating Adults Pain Checklist (NCAPC) is an 18-item behavioral scale that was recently found to be reliable, valid, sensitive and clinically fea...

The purpose of this study was to develop a new Movement domain, based on 16 items from the Global Physiotherapy Examination-52 (GPE-52) and 18 items from the Comprehensive Body Examination (CBE). Furthermore, we examined how well the new domain and its scales would discriminate between healthy individuals and different groups of patients, compared...

The objective of this study was to examine the effect of Norwegian psychomotor physical therapy on subjective health complaints and psychological symptoms. A non-randomized waiting list controlled design was used. Physiotherapists in Norway recruited patients for a treatment group (n = 40) and waiting list control group (n = 22). Patients on the wa...

The aim was to develop a new Posture domain based on eight postural items from the Global Physiotherapy Examination-52 (GPE-52) and 17 items from the Comprehensive Body Examination (CBE), and furthermore, to examine how the new scale discriminated between healthy individuals and different groups of patients compared with the original methods. Two p...

Abstract Body awareness is an essential focus when physiotherapists treat patients with musculoskeletal and psychosomatic disorders and is important in such treatment as Norwegian Psychomotor Physiotherapy (NPMP). The purpose of this study was to develop a self-administered questionnaire to capture body awareness as defined within NPMP. A pool of 6...

Objectives: The aims of this study were to evaluate the discriminative ability of a body examination in healthy subjects versus patients with long-lasting musculoskeletal pain, and further to compare physical findings in patients with localized versus widespread pain, and between women and men. Methods: The Global Physiotherapy Examination [GPE-52]...

There is lack of evidence for specific treatment interventions for patients with non-specific chronic low back pain (NSCLBP) despite the substantial amount of randomised controlled clinical trials evaluating treatment outcome for this disorder. It has been hypothesised that this vacuum of evidence is caused by the lack of subclassification of the h...

In this single-blinded, randomized, pilot study, a series of corticosteroid injections in patients with shoulder capsulitis induced about 40% reduction of complaints over an 8-week period from baseline measurements of function and pain, measured with the shoulder pain and disability index (SPADI) and numerical visual analogue pain scale (NVAS). To...

The objective was to examine inter-tester reliability and validity of two therapists identifying the spinous processes (SP) of C7 and L5, using one predefined surface palpation procedure for each level. One identification method made it possible to examine the reliability and the validity of the procedure itself. Two manual therapists examined 49 p...

There is a lack of studies examining whether mechanism-based classification systems (CS) acknowledging biological, psychological and social dimensions of long-lasting low back pain (LBP) disorders can be performed in a reliable manner. The purpose of this paper was to examine the inter-tester reliability of clinicians' ability to independently clas...

Although there have been studies on patients with persistent dizziness, physical findings have not been formerly focused. The aim of this study was to investigate localization and extent of physical dysfunctions in patients with long-lasting dizziness. To investigate physical change, we re-examined patients who had completed a vestibular rehabilita...

There is no consensus among experts regarding the etiology or management of patellofemoral pain syndrome (PFPS). Observations indicating dysfunction of the peripheral nervous system around the patellae have been reported. To what extent these sensory abnormalities cause pain has so far not been investigated. The aim of this study was to assess whet...

Anterior knee pain, diagnosed as Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome (PFPS), is one of the most common musculoskeletal problems found in adolescents and young adults. There is no consensus in medical literature concerning the aetiology of the PFPS. To assess by means of Quantitative Sensory Testing (QST) whether patients suffering from long-lasting unilat...

Former studies have questioned the effectiveness of multidisciplinary rehabilitation for working-age adults with musculoskeletal pain problems. The lack of analysis within subgroups may explain why an effect of treatment of long-term musculoskeletal pain was not documented in former studies. In this ar- ticle three later studies on long-term muscul...

The sensitivity to change and the responsiveness of the Global Physiotherapy Examination (GPE-52) were examined in patients with localized and widespread long-lasting musculoskeletal pain. All included patients were on sick leave and constituted the treatment group in a randomized controlled study. Two hundred forty-seven patients (64% women; mean...

Manual therapists (MTs) are specialized in examining and treating patients with low back pain (LBP). The aim of the study was to investigate if patients' consultations with Norwegian MTs are in accordance with clinical guidelines for the management of acute LBP. Semi-structured interviews were conducted based on observation of the first consultatio...

Background and purpose: An examination method based on psychosomatic physiotherapy, with 24 standardized tests related to general aspects of mobility, flexibility and the ability to relax, is used in some pain and rehabilitation clinics in Scandinavia in order to document where--and to what degree--patients have aberrations within the domain 'move...

The aims of this study were to investigate reliability and aspects of validity of a previously developed method called the Global Physiotherapeutic Muscle Examination (GPM), which comprises items related to palpation of Muscle (18 items) and Skin (12 items). Inter-tester reliability was examined by three physiotherapists examining 19 persons. Const...

Clinical examination of respiration may be an important aspect of musculoskeletal problems, but has scarcely been reported. The aims of this study were to evaluate the reliability and validity of the domain Respiration, containing 12 items oriented towards the inspection of respiratory movement and rhythm. Inter-tester reliability was examined by t...

The purpose of the study was to evaluate possible relationships between physical findings, as measured with the Global Physiotherapeutic Examination (GPE-78), and psychological characteristics, as measured with the revised Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2), in three groups of patients with long-lasting musculoskeletal pain. A tot...

51 patients suffering chronic pain, with different diagnoses, were treated in groups as outpatients using a cognitive behavioural approach. Groups of 7-8 patients met for two hours a week for six weeks. The groups were led by a team consisting of a clinical psychologist, a physiotherapist and a doctor. The patients learned about different aspects o...