Benjamin Brown

• PhD
• Lecturer at Macquarie University

Back pain is a common and recurrent health complaint in adolescence. Psychosocial factors may be associated with the onset and persistence of back pain symptoms. This systematic review aims to determine the association between bullying victimization and back pain in young people. Observational studies that quantified the association between bullyin...

Scope of practice has been defined as the activities that an individual health care practitioner is allowed to undertake within a specific profession. The chiropractic profession in Australia does not currently have a documented scope of practice. Informed discussions around scope of practice are hampered by a paucity of literature in this area. Ac...

Scope of practice has been defined as the activities that an individual health care practitioner is allowed to undertake within a specific profession. The chiropractic profession in Australia does not currently have a documented scope of practice. Informed discussions around scope of practice are hampered by a paucity of literature in this area. Ac...

Introduction: Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis is the most common spinal deformity encountered in adolescents and larger curves are more prevalent in girls. For females with scoliosis, women's health issues are of particular concern, especially pregnancy. The aim of this review was to summarise the best available evidence to determine the influence...

Objectives To describe if there has been a change in the reporting of adverse events associated with spinal manipulation in randomised clinical trials (RCTs) since 2016. Design A systematic literature review. Data sources Databases were searched from March 2016 to May 2022: MEDLINE (Ovid), Embase, CINAHL, ICL, PEDro and Cochrane Library. The foll...

Introduction A well-functioning health system delivers quality services to all people when and where they need them. To help navigate the complex realm of patient care, it is essential that health care professions have a thorough understanding of their scope of practice. However, a lack of uniformity regarding scope of practice across the regulated...

Objective The aim of this study was to assess the agreement between a web-based scoliosis screening tool and a standard screening procedure. Methods Sixty participants were selected (median age, 12 years; 75% were women) and separated into 2 groups: those with unknown spinal curvature status and those with confirmed scoliosis. Each participant was...

Background The recommended treatment for mild to moderate infantile idiopathic scoliosis curves involves serial casting. There are concerns, however, regarding the safety of repeated casting in very young children owing to the requirement for anesthetization during the casting process. Very little research has been conducted on the influence of bra...

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted a wide range of health services. This study aimed to quantify the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on manual therapy service utilization within the Australian private healthcare setting during the first half of 2020. Quarterly data regarding the number and total cost of services provided were extracted for each man...

IntroductionPrimary degenerative scoliosis represents a new scoliosis developing in patients with no prior history of spinal curvature. Researchers sought to determine the prevalence of this type of scoliosis.MethodsMEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, Web of Science and PubMed were searched from inception to 28th March, 2018. Studies that assessed adults from...

Background: Better understanding of the dynamics and temporal changes in manual therapy service utilisation may assist with healthcare planning and resource allocation. The objectives of this study were to quantify, describe, and compare service utilisation trends in the manual therapy professions within the Australian private healthcare setting b...

Background: There is a paucity of literature regarding the conservative management of adult scoliosis. The authors review and summarize the literature from 1967 to 2018 on the clinical outcomes of spinal brace/orthosis use in this subgroup of the population. Methods: CINAHL, Embase, CENTRAL, PubMed and PEDro were searched from database inception...

Fatal injuries caused by assault and operations of war are commonplace in the lands of Westeros and Essos. Switching allegiances is a key factor to increasing chances of survival.

Questions: How commonly and how quickly does low back pain reoccur in a cohort of people who have recently recovered from an episode of low back pain? What are the prognostic factors for a recurrence of low back pain? Design: Prospective inception cohort study with monthly follow-up for 12 months. Participants: A total of 250 patients who had...

Objective: To investigate the influence of providing online procedural videos to postgraduate chiropractic students preparing for an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE). Methods: Eighty-three postgraduate chiropractic students enrolled in a diagnostic unit during 2017 received supplemental video resources prior to their final OSCE....

[Purpose] There is a paucity of high-quality data pertaining to the conservative management of adult spinal deformity, particularly Scheuermann’s kyphosis. Long-term follow-up data for both treated and untreated Scheuermann’s patients is also lacking. Given that changes in sagittal balance are associated with increased morbidity, and that these cha...

Background Game of Thrones is a popular television series known for its violent and graphic portrayal of the deaths of its characters. This study aimed to examine the mortality and survival of important characters in Game of Thrones. Methods Important characters appearing in Seasons 1 to 7 of Game of Thrones were included, and data on sociodemogra...

Abstract Background The measurement of Posterior-Anterior (P-A) spinal stiffness is a common component of the physical examination of patients presenting with spinal disorders. The aim of this assessment is to provoke pain and/or to determine the degree of resistance or compliance of these structures and the associated soft-tissues to loading. This...

The use of social media in anatomy education has increased in recent years. Among the other possible areas of application, social media can be seen as an instrument to facilitate the push to imbibe anatomy and anatomy education with humanistic values and make practices in these disciplines more humane. This paper reviewed the presentation of anatom...

While spinal manipulative therapy (SMT) is recommended for the treatment of spinal disorders, concerns exist about adverse events associated with the intervention. Adequate reporting of adverse events in clinical trials would allow for more accurate estimations of incidence statistics through meta-analysis. However, it is not currently known if the...

Study Design Systematic review. Background While most people with acute low back pain (LBP) recover quickly, recurrences are believed to be common. To our knowledge, no published high-quality systematic review has assessed the risk of recurrent LBP or the factors that would predict LBP recurrence. Objectives The aim of this study was to investiga...

Background: Reporting of adverse events in randomized clinical trials (RCTs) is encouraged by the authors of The Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) statement. With robust methodological design and adequate reporting, RCTs have the potential to provide useful evidence on the incidence of adverse events associated with spinal manipu...

Background Reviews indicate that the quality of reporting of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in the medical literature is less than optimal, poor to moderate, and require improving. However, the reporting quality of chiropractic RCTs is unknown.As a result, the aim of this study was to assess the reporting quality of chiropractic RCTs and ident...

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Background: This paper reports the proceedings of the 2014 chiropractic educational colloquium hosted by Macquarie University. Representatives from Australasian chiropractic educational institutions and major stakeholder groups in Australian chiropractic education came together to reflect on the collective professional effort. Objective: The aim of...

Background context: Spinal manipulative therapy (SMT) is commonly used to treat spinal disorders. Although clinical practice guidelines recommend the use of SMT in the treatment of neck and back disorders, concerns exist about the nature and incidence of adverse events associated with the intervention. Comprehensive reporting of adverse events in...

Background: Despite the introduction of the CONSORT checklist, the quality of reporting of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) within the biomedical literature has been described as suboptimal, with a need for improvement, while that of chiropractic trials remains unexamined. Aims: The aim of this protocol is to develop a tool to assess the overall...

Objectives: To evaluate the methodologic quality of the evidence for the use of spinal manipulative therapy (SMT) with and without other therapies in the management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Design: A systematic review of the literature. Participants: Any participant of a primary research study that investigated the effe...

Hypothyroidism is a common endocrine condition. There is evidence to suggest that, for a proportion of sufferers, the standard medical treatment does not completely reverse the constitutional and neuropsychiatric symptoms brought about by this condition. The management of hypothyroidism follows a biomedical model with little consideration given to...

Objective The purpose of this study was to describe patient characteristics and summarize their perceptions of chiropractic in Australia. Methods This study is part of a broader study aiming to extend the knowledge of the role of chiropractic within the current health care environment. A 33-item, paper-based, cross-sectional survey of a sample of...

Chiropractors, physiotherapists, and osteopaths receive training in the diagnosis and management of musculoskeletal conditions. As a result there is considerable overlap in the types of conditions that are encountered clinically by these practitioners. In Australia, the majority of benefits paid for these services come from the private sector. The...

Background: An increase in the use of complementary and alternative medicine was identified in several countries including Australia. There is a need to assess the current position of chiropractic within the Australian health system. Objectie s: To estimate the lifetime prevalence of the use of chiropractic in Australia; to investigate the percepti...

Objectives: The aim of this report is to describe the demographic characteristics including the age profile, gender differences, income and perceptions of supply and demand of the chiropractic profession in Australia. This workforce study (WFS) was divided into three components, Australian Chiropractors (Stage 1), their patients (Stage 2), and memb...

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to describe the chiropractic profession in NSW, in terms of the demographic, educational and socio-demographic background of the chiropractic profession. Information regarding clinics and patient characteristics was also collected and discussed.

15 steps of the NET protocol.

Sample of an advertisement used to recruit participants for the clinical pilot-trial.

Placebo protocol used in the pilot trial.

Hypothyroidism is a prevalent endocrine condition. Individuals with this disease are commonly managed through supplementation with synthetic thyroid hormone, with the aim of alleviating symptoms and restoring normal thyroid stimulating hormone levels. Generally this management strategy is effective and well tolerated. However, there is research to...

This paper comments on the role and emergence of the biopsychosocial model in modern medical literature and health care settings. The evolution of the biopsychosocial model and its close association with modern pain theory is also examined. This paper seeks to discuss the place of this model with respect to the management of hypothyroidism. This di...