Lennard Voogt

• PhD
• Lecturer at University of Applied Sciences, Rotterdam, Netherlands

Background Current low back pain (LBP) treatment might be improved by tailoring treatments to subgroup characteristics. The Start Back screening Tool (SBT) and Central Sensitization Inventory (CSI) classify people with LBP into subgroups. It is currently unknown whether linear trends exist regarding somatosensory changes, psychological characterist...

Purpose: (1) To evaluate the effectiveness of personalised psychologically-informed physiotherapy in people with neck pain; (2) To explore the mediating role of changes in illness perceptions. Method: In this replicated single-case study, 14 patients with non-specific neck pain at risk for chronicity received a personalised intervention addressi...

Purpose Exercise therapy is the first-line treatment in rotator cuff-related shoulder pain (RCRSP), and diverse types of exercise seem effective. However, it is not still clear if painful exercise should be allowed or avoided during exercises. The objective of this study was to investigate if exercise into pain is more effective than no pain in RCR...

Objective Specific neck exercises are recommended in the rehabilitation of chronic nonspecific neck pain. They are unfortunately often accompanied by acute pain flare-ups. Global exercises might be a beneficial addition, as they activate endogenous analgesia without overloading painful structures. However, it is still unclear which type of exercise...

Background Illness perceptions can affect the way people with musculoskeletal pain emotionally and behaviorally cope with their health condition. Understanding patients illness perceptions may help facilitate patient-centered care. The purpose of this study was to explore illness perceptions and the origin of those perceptions in people with chroni...

Chronic conditions and multi-morbidity affect 50 million individuals within Europe and are the leading causes of disablement and death. Obesity, inactivity, chronic pain/fatigue and mental health issues are reported in 25–85% of all people with a chronic disease, irrespective of the pathological mechanism. The prevalence of comorbidity increases wi...

The potential to classify low back pain as being characterised by dominant nociceptive, neuropathic, or nociplastic mechanisms is a clinically relevant issue. Preliminary evidence suggests that these low back pain phenotypes might respond differently to treatments; however, more research must be done before making specific recommendations. Accordin...

Background In 2013, physical therapy students demonstrated low guideline-adherent recommendations regarding chronic low back pain (CLBP) for spinal pathology, activity, and work. Objectives To assess the differences in physical therapy students’ attitudes, beliefs, and adherence to guideline recommendations regarding CLBP and knee osteoarthritis...

Background: Physical exercise is an important element in the rehabilitation of chronic whiplash-associated disorders, with the physiological process underlying pain reduction called exercise-induced hypoalgesia. In chronic whiplash-associated disorders, exercise-induced hypoalgesia appears impaired, and the research suggests a relationship with sym...

Background Illness perceptions can affect the way people with musculoskeletal pain emotionally and behaviorally cope with their health condition. Understanding patients illness perceptions may help facilitate patient-centered care. The purpose of this study was to explore illness perceptions and the origin of those perceptions in people with chroni...

Objectives This study evaluated the feasibility of exercising into pain in rotator cuff related shoulder pain (RCRSP), data collection procedures, feedback from physiotherapists and patients, and clinically important changes in patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs). Design Unblinded non-randomised single-group study. Setting Physiotherapy cli...

Background In physical therapy practice patients and therapists exchange their perspectives on musculoskeletal health problems and their meaning for both of them. However, literature indicates that physical therapists find it difficult to enquire about the patients’ values during clinical encounters. Objectives The aim of this study was to gain de...

(1) Background: Noradrenaline and serotonin have modulatory roles in pain signaling and in exercise-induced hypoalgesia. Patients with chronic whiplash-associated disorders often show impaired exercise-induced hypoalgesia. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the isolated effect of activating serotonergic or noradrenergic descending pathways on h...

Background Movement-evoked pain may have a protective or learned component, influenced by visual cues which suggest that the person is moving towards a position that may be perceived as threatening. We investigated whether visual feedback manipulation in virtual reality (VR) had a different effect on cervical pain-free range of motion (ROM) in peop...

This study investigated the intra-rater reliability of a novice ultrasound (US) examiner and the inter-rater reliability of two examiners (novice, expert) in the measures of coracohumeral distance at rest (CHD) and at 60° of elevation without (CHD60) or with weights (CHD60w), tendon thickness of the long head of the biceps (LHB) and subscapularis (...

Background: Dry needling is frequently used for the treatment of neck pain but knowledge about its neurophysiological central effects is scarce. Objectives: To compare the immediate effects of a single session of dry needling (DN) and sham needling (SN) on local and distant pressure pain thresholds and conditioned pain modulation in patients wit...

Background: Musculoskeletal (MSK) injury is one of the major causes of persistent pain. Objective: This systematic literature review explored the factors that lead to persistent pain following a MSK injury in the general population, including athletes. Methods: A primary literature search of five electronic databases was performed to identify...

Background: Acromiohumeral distance (AHD) and supraspinatus tendon thickness (STT) measured by ultrasound (US) can be combined in the occupation ratio (OR). Inter-rater reliability on these subacromial measures depends on the US experience of raters and on the subject status, differing between asymptomatic or patients with subacromial shoulder pai...

Objectives: Quantitative Sensory Testing (QST) is used to test somatosensory functioning in patients with low back pain (LBP) and most performed on people with chronic LBP in secondary/tertiary health care facilities. Studies using QST-testing on LBP populations in primary care are scarce. Central Sensitization Inventory (CSI) measures central sen...

Background Participants’ previous experience with an intervention may be an important variable when conducting sham-controlled trials. Objective This study explored if previous experience with dry needling (DN) influenced blinding effectiveness and pain outcomes, after the application of DN in patients with neck pain. Design A preliminary randomi...

The current systematic review aimed to compare the effect of injury-focused (specific) exercises versus more general (non-specific) exercises on pain in patients with chronic neck or shoulder pain. We searched PubMed, EMBASE, and Web of Science. Two reviewers screened and selected studies, extracted outcomes, assessed risk of bias, and rated the qu...

Recently, the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) released clinical criteria and a grading system for nociplastic pain affecting the musculoskeletal system. These criteria replaced the 2014 clinical criteria for predominant central sensitization (CS) pain and accounted for clinicians' need to identify (early) and correctly classi...

Objective: Dry needling is commonly used for the management of musculoskeletal pain patients. However, the effects of patient expectations are uncertain. Our aim was to determine the effect of patient expectations on short-term clinical outcomes after the application of a single session of dry needling in individuals with neck pain. Methods: We...

Background There are distinct differences in the implementation of physiotherapeutic care in nursing homes. Both nationally and internationally staffing levels of physiotherapy differ significantly between and within nursing homes. Since legislation or guidelines that specify the parameters of physiotherapy required in nursing homes are lacking, it...

Background Based on associative learning theories it is hypothesised that pain might be a conditioned response. In people with musculoskeletal pain, the occurrence of movement‐induced pain might be a protective response, influenced by visual cues suggesting that the person is approaching a painful position. This study aimed to determine (1) whether...

Background The Pictorial Fear of Activity Scale-Cervical (PFActS-C) is a reliable and valid instrument to assess fear of movement in people with whiplash associated disorders. It is not available in Dutch and has not been evaluated in other neck pain populations. This study aimed to systematically translate the PFActS-C into Dutch and evaluate the...

Objective: Central sensitization is present in different pain conditions, including chronic whiplash-associated disorders. In the absence of a gold standard method of assessment to determine the presence of central sensitization, quantitative sensory testing is currently understood as an optimal proxy. Laboratory sensory testing is, however, not f...

Objectives: Physiotherapy is, like all healthcare professions, relational and value-laden. Patient-centred care, evidence-based practice and value-based practices are concepts in which patient values lie at the heart of high-quality healthcare practices. Nevertheless, physiotherapists have limited awareness of what patient values are in the physio...

Background Prescription behavior in low back pain (LBP) differs between physical therapists with a biomedical versus a biopsychosocial belief, despite the presence of clinical guidelines. Objective To examine (1) the beliefs of physical therapy students and their adherence to clinical LBP guidelines in Belgium and the Netherlands; (2) whether the...

Background Exercise, a cornerstone in current treatments for people with musculoskeletal pain, elicits a phenomenon called ‘exercise‐induced hypoalgesia’ (EIH) that may result in reduced pain intensity and/or increased pain thresholds. However, EIH can be impaired in patients with musculoskeletal pain, and psychosocial factors may play a mediating...

Purpose: To investigate if patients with neuropsychological disorders (neglect, aphasia, or cognitive dysfunction measured with the Mini-mental state examination) short after stroke have different functional outcome at follow-up compared to patients without these disorders. Methods: Embase, Medline-Ovid, PsycINFO, Cochrane CENTRAL, Web of Science a...

Chronic pain affects up to 30% of the adult population Chronic pain affects up to 30% of the adult population [...]

Study design: Systematic review and meta-analysis. Background: Quantitative mechanical sensory testing (QST) assesses sensory functioning and detects functional changes in (central) nociceptive processing. In the current low back pain literature it has been hypothesized that these functional changes might be apparent in people with non-specific...

Background: Disorders of the rotator cuff are a common musculoskeletal pain presentation in the general population, and treatment by a physiotherapist is often prescribed. In 2011, 2016, surveys of physiotherapy practice in the United Kingdom (UK) were performed, which reported that advice and exercise were the most common treatment strategies use...

Purpose: In the era of value-based healthcare, one strives for the most optimal outcomes and experiences from the perspective of the patient. So, patient experiences have become a key quality indicator for healthcare. While these are supposed to drive quality improvement (QI), their use and effectiveness for this purpose has been questioned. The ai...

Chronic low back pain (CLBP) has major public health implications, and underlying mechanisms are still unclear. Sensorimotor incongruence (SMI)—an ongoing mismatch between top-down motor output and predicted sensory feedback—may play a role in the course of chronic nonspecific low back pain. The hypothesis of this study was that the induction of SM...

Conservative, surgical and pharmacological strategies for chronic low back pain (CLBP) management offer at best modest effect sizes in reducing pain and related disability, indicating a need for improvement. Such improvement may be derived from applying contemporary pain neuroscience to the management of CLBP. Current interventions for people with...

Objectives: Central sensitization (CS) implies increased sensitivity of the nervous system, resulting in increased pain sensitivity as well as widespread pain. Recently, the Central Sensitization Inventory (CSI) was developed to assess symptoms of CS and central sensitivity syndromes. The aim of this study was to examine the convergent validity of...

Study Design Controlled laboratory study. Background Chronic whiplash-associated disorder (WAD) is an important health issue associated with poor recovery outcomes. Sensorimotor incongruence (SMI), defined as a mismatch between the efference copy in the brain and afferent sensory feedback from the body, is proposed as a possible underlying cause o...

Objective: In order to deliver good healthcare quality, it should explicitly be taken into account what patients value in healthcare. This study reviews qualitative studies in which patients express what they value. Based on this body of literature a preliminary taxonomy is designed. Methods: A systematic review of qualitative papers on what pat...

Table of contents S1 Criteria for exercises selection in subjects with low back pain Alessandro Aina S2 Recent advances in pathophysiology and treatment of myofascial trigger points Marco Barbero S3 Rehabilitation of scapular dyskinesia Barbara Cagnie S4 Musculoskeletal rehabilitation in subjects affected by neurological disorders Elena Castelli S5...

Objectives: Musculoskeletal pain has major public health implications, but the theoretical framework remains unclear. It is hypothesized that sensorimotor incongruence (SMI) might be a cause of long-lasting pain sensations in people with chronic musculoskeletal pain. Research data about experimental SMI triggering pain has been equivocal, making t...

Background: Whiplash-associated disorders (WAD) are a debilitating condition. In chronic WAD, sensorimotor incongruence exacerbates symptoms. Sensorimotor incongruence occurs when somatosensory input and predicted motor output are in conflict,which can trigger pain.On the other hand, there is evidence that visual feedback can decrease pain in certa...

Background: Neck pain is a widespread complaint. People experiencing neck pain often present an altered timing in contraction of cervical muscles. This (altered) afferent information elicits the cervico-ocular reflex (COR), which stabilizes the eye in response to trunk-to-head movements. The vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) elicited by the vestibulum...

Several studies in recent decades have examined the relationship between proprioceptive deficits and neck pain. However, there is no uniform conclusion on the relationship between the two. Clinically, proprioception is evaluated using the Joint Position Sense Error (JPSE), which reflects a person's ability to accurately return his head to a predefi...

Background: Whiplash-associated disorders (WAD) are a debilitating condition. In chronic WAD, sensorimotor incongruence exacerbates symptoms. Sensorimotor incongruence occurs when somatosensory input and predicted motor output are in conflict, which can trigger pain. On the other hand, there is evidence that visual feedback can decrease pain in ce...

Background Current evidence shows that manual therapy elicits analgesic effect in different populations (healthy, pain inflicted and patients with musculoskeletal pain) when carried out at the spinal column, although the clinical significance of these effects remains unclear. Also the analgesic effects of manual therapy on peripheral joints have no...

The awareness is growing that central sensitization is of prime importance for the assessment and management of chronic pain, but its classification is challenging clinically since no gold standard method of assessment exists. Objectives: Designing the first set of classification criteria for the classification of central sensitization pain. Method...

People who do not experience chronic pain find it hard to imagine what it means to have to struggle with this type of pain on a daily basis. The focus of this thesis is to describe this experience and to explain the meaning of this experience to outsiders. With regard to the practical relevance, I conclude that a better understand- ing of the wo...