Peter W McCarthy

Peter W McCarthy
University of South Wales · Faculty of Life Sciences and Education.

PhD

About

122
Publications
39,495
Reads
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2,261
Citations
Introduction
An eclectic research profile centred on an interest in function of the nervous system. Current projects include: 1. Using neurophysiology to understand needs of patients with sensory loss. Use this information to develop sensor systems to measure sensations related to discomfort when sitting or lying and create predictive algorithms from this data that can be applied to patients. 2. Develop a multidisciplinary team interested in studying neck function changes in sport and developing ways of increasing performance and reducing the impact these changes can have (e.g., reduce incidence of concussion and catastrophic injury). 3. Using neurophysiology to enhance Brain Computer Interface (BCI) options in order to increase the number of systems that can be controlled simultaneously.
Additional affiliations
January 2021 - May 2021
University of South Wales
Position
  • Professor Emeritus
October 1980 - June 1985
University of St Andrews
Position
  • Research Assistant
July 1998 - May 2013
University of Glamorgan
Education
October 1980 - April 1985
University of St Andrews
Field of study
  • Neuropharmacology
October 1979 - October 1980
Barts Health NHS Trust
Field of study
  • Medical laboratory sciences
October 1976 - June 1979
The University of Manchester
Field of study
  • Pharmacology and physiology

Publications

Publications (122)
Article
Full-text available
Sedentary behaviors, including poor postures, are significantly detrimental to health, particularly for individuals losing motion ability. This study presents a posture detection system utilizing four force-sensitive resistors (FSRs) and two triaxial accelerometers selected after rigorous assessment for consistency and linearity. We compared variou...
Article
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In chronic musculoskeletal conditions, the prognosis tends to be more informative than the diagnosis for the future course of the disease. Many studies have identified clusters of patients who seemingly share similar pain trajectories. In a dataset of low back pain (LBP) patients, pain trajectories have been identified, and distinct trajectory type...
Article
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Continuous monitoring of health status has the potential to enhance the quality of life and life expectancy of people suffering from chronic illness and of the elderly. However, such systems can only come into widespread use if the cost of manufacturing is low. Advancements in material science and engineering technology have led to a significant de...
Article
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Measuring temperature changes at the body-seat interface has been drawing increased attention from both industrial and scientific fields, due to the increasingly sedentary nature from daily leisure activity to routine work. Although contact measurement is considered the gold standard, it can affect the local micro-environment and the perception of...
Poster
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We developed an algorithm to classify non-specific low back pain patients by their long-term pain fluctuations, known as pain trajectories. This algorithm will be used to perform a large scale multidimensional subgroup analysis to identify moderators and or mediators of low back pain trajectories.
Article
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Background A 2019 review concluded that spinal manipulative therapy (SMT) results in similar benefit compared to other interventions for chronic low back pain (LBP). Compared to traditional aggregate analyses individual participant data (IPD) meta-analyses allows for a more precise estimate of the treatment effect. Purpose To assess the effect of...
Article
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Being seated has increasingly pervaded both working and leisure lifestyles, with development of more comfortable seating surfaces dependent on feedback from subjective questionnaires and design aesthetics. As a consequence, research has become focused on how to objectively resolve factors that might underpin comfort and discomfort. This review summ...
Article
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We present the results of a study investigating whether there is an effect of Anodal-Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (A-tDCS) on working memory (WM) performance. The relative effectiveness of A-tDCS on WM is investigated using a 2-back test protocol using two commonly used memory visual stimuli (shapes and letters). In a double-blinded, ran...
Article
People who have a diagnosis of cancer may develop, or already have musculoskeletal conditions, just like any other person. However, discussion about potential benefits of chiropractic treatment to this group has generally been avoided related to the fear of misrepresentation. We aimed to derive a consensus from a group of experienced chiropractors...
Article
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Background: Patient-centred care is internationally recognized as a foundation of quality patient care. Attitudes of students towards patient-centred care have been assessed in various health professions. However, little is known how chiropractic students' attitudes towards patient-centred care compare to those of other health professions or wheth...
Article
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Relative humidity (RH) at the body-seat interface is considered an important factor in both sitting comfort and generation of health concerns such as skin lesions. Technical difficulties appear to have limited research aimed at the detailed and simultaneous exploration of RH and temperature changes at the body-seat interface; using RH sensors witho...
Article
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Background: The phenomenon of inattentional blindness has been discussed for years, in relation to everyday life and clinical practice. Inattentional blindness refers to the common failure to notice plainly visible items when attention is otherwise preoccupied. The purpose of this study was to assess any potential difference in inattentional blindn...
Article
Objectives: The primary aim of this pilot study was to determine the feasibility of conducting a mixed- methods study assessing the extent patients with chronic health conditions perceive chiropractic care to be patient-centred. Design: A sequential mixed methods feasibility study with a quantitative priority. Setting: Two private chiropractic...
Article
Research has suggested baby wearing results in happier healthier babies [1]. Various designs of carrier are available, is there one which has less impact on the biomechanics of the cervical spine?
Article
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Objective. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a neuromodulatory technique that delivers a low-intensity, direct current to cortical areas with the purpose of modulating underlying brain activity. Recent studies have reported inconsistencies in tDCS outcomes. The underlying assumption of many tDCS studies has been that replication of...
Article
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Little is known about the changes in moisture that occur at the body–seat interface during sitting. However, as increased moisture can add to the risk of skin damage, we have developed an array of MEMS (Micro-Electro-Mechanical System) humidity sensors to measure at this interface. Sensors were first evaluated against traceable standards, followed...
Article
We describe a mapping system based on 64 evenly spaced digital sensors (thermal in this example) and interpolation algorithms. Current pressure mapping systems are suspect to noise, signal drift (creep), hysteresis and drop out of pixels, requiring frequent recalibration all of which impact on accuracy and experimental protocols. The system describ...
Article
Background Elite male rugby union players have a decreased active cervical spine rage of motion (ACROM), the severity correlates to both number of years playing and position (Lark & McCarthy 2007, Scher 1990), but a measurable decrease occurs over a season (Lark & McCarthy 2010). Objective The aim was to ascertain whether a neck prehabiliation pro...
Article
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Background The management of chronic health conditions increasingly requires an organized, coordinated, and patient-centered approach to care. The Chronic Care Model (CCM) has been adopted in primary care to improve care delivery for those with chronic health conditions. Chiropractors manage chronic health conditions; however, little is known if su...
Article
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Background: There are many professional associations representing chiropractors and chiropractic in the United Kingdom (UK). Each has its unique selling points (USPs) and chiropractors can choose to join as many as they like; however, cost of membership has to be weighed against perceived benefits. The predictors of UK chiropractic association mem...
Article
Objective: To determine the changes to a synovial cyst following symptomatic resolution utilizing a conservative treatment protocol. Clinical Features: A 76-year- old female had a 6-month history of pain in the right buttock, posterior thigh, calf, ankle and foot and dysaesthesia in the right L5 dermatome. Intervention and Outcome: Following a shor...
Article
This study presents a method for objectively measuring in-chair movement (ICM) that shows correlation with subjective ratings of comfort and discomfort. Employing a cross-over controlled, single blind design, healthy young subjects (n = 21) sat for 18 min on each of the following surfaces: contoured foam, straight foam and wood. Force sensitive res...
Article
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We aim to measure the postintervention effects of A-tDCS (anodal-tDCS) on brain potentials commonly used in BCI applications, namely, Event-Related Desynchronization (ERD), Event-Related Synchronization (ERS), and P300. Ten subjects were given sham and 1.5 mA A-tDCS for 15 minutes on two separate experiments in a double-blind, randomized order. Pos...
Article
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Background While there have been investigations into the reduced neck injury rate of wearing protective helmets, there is little information on its effects on normal kinaesthetic neck function. This study aims to quantify the kinaesthetic and movement effects of the American football helmet. Methods Fifteen British Collegiate American football pla...
Article
Aim Elite male rugby union players have a decreased active cervical range of motion (ACROM), the severity of which appears to correlate with number of years playing and position.1 Although the female game has yet to attain full professional status, players are still subjected to the same game related activities and might be expected to similarly ac...
Article
There is a need to develop a greater understanding of temperature at the skin–seat interface during prolonged seating from the perspectives of both industrial design (comfort/discomfort) and medical care (skin ulcer formation). Here we test the concept of predicting temperature at the seat surface and skin interface during prolonged sitting (such a...
Book
Finding the right criteria to use when judging Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) is essential if it is to stand up to criticism from those concerned about the importance of evidence-based medicine. This edited volume highlights how CAM requires different research tools and techniques from conventional medicine, and examines effective met...
Article
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Background: In the UK Physiotherapy, Chiropractic and Osteopathy are all statutory regulated professions. Though guidelines have supported the use of Spinal Manipulative Therapy (SMT) for low back pain (LBP), General Practitioners (GP) referral patterns to the 3 registered professions that perform SMT are generally unknown. Method: A short quest...
Article
This study examined for differences in subjective ratings of discomfort and comfort (Numerical Rating Scale) and objective measures of hamstring (Sit Reach test), lumbar (Schober's test) and neck (Cervical Range of Motion) flexibility in healthy young subjects (n = 24) following 4 h of sitting on stacking chairs with or without limited legroom. Whe...
Article
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This study examined the subjective rating of wheelchair comfort and discomfort (numerical rating scale questionnaire) and the duration of objective in-chair movement reduction "settling down time" following initial contact with the seating surface. Healthy young subjects (n = 22) sat for 5 min on contoured foam or wood cushion surfaces fitted to ot...
Article
To determine whether 3 fixed positions of seat-subject interface temperature measurement offer more information than a single point of measurement. Temperature data was simultaneously acquired (sampling frequency 1 Hz/sensor) from each of three sensor positions (right & left mid-thigh and coccyx), from the subject-seat interface. The data was acqui...
Article
To determine interrater agreement and test-retest reliability of the parallel walk test (PWT), a simple method of measuring dynamic balance in the elderly during gait. Cohort study. Outpatient clinic. Elderly fallers (N=34; mean ± SD age, 81.3±5.4y) registered at a falls clinic participated in this study based on Mini-Mental State Examination and B...
Article
There is now an increasing demand for chiropractic practice to encompass all the aspects of orthodox medicine, including the appreciation of pharmaceutical products. With the future possibility of chiropractors being given limited prescribing rights, practitioner appreciation of possible drug toxicity problems becomes even more imperative.This is a...
Article
Purpose To determine if serum cortisol levels are increased following spinal manipulative therapy (SMT) to the low back region and to determine the effect of a short rest interval on daytime serum cortisol levels. Method The research was in the form of a randomized, clinical trial, using human subjects, with informed consent and ethics committee a...
Article
Full-text available
It has been established that Rugby players have reduced active cervical function that further declines with increased number of playing years; noticeable even over a single season. Here we examine one possible reason, namely insufficient recovery during the off-season, which will only be exacerbated by the trend towards a decreasing off-season peri...
Article
Full-text available
In the last decade the sub grouping of low back pain (LBP) patients according to their likely response to treatment has been identified as a research priority. As with other patient groups, researchers have found few if any factors from the case history or physical examination that are helpful in predicting the outcome of chiropractic care. However...
Article
Rugby players have a reduced active cervical range of motion (ACROM) mid-season compared with age-matched controls. This is most evident in rugby forwards, who have ACROM similar to patients with acute whiplash. This study aims to show if the change in ACROM over an entire rugby season (pre-, mid-, and end of season) shows a pattern of decline. A c...
Article
This paper applied the data-driven technique of Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) to smooth raw thermal data between body and seat interface. The performance of this EMD-based filter was compared with Moving Av erage (MA) filter, Local Regression (LR) filter and Savitzky-Golay (SG) filter using the goodness of statistics and error charts as judgme...
Article
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In this report, the problems of third molar surgery have been reviewed from the perspective of both patient and clinician; additionally an overall analysis of preoperative imaging investigations was carried out.Specifically, three main areas of interest were investigated: the prediction of surgical difficulty and potential complications; the assess...
Article
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Magnetic stimulation is extensively used in research of the intra-cortical connections of the human brain, but there is relatively little evidence of its reliability in terms of generating repeatable Motor Evoked Potentials (MEPs) which are often used as a means of establishing the appropriate power out-put of the stimulator for an individual subje...
Article
Humidity and temperature are considered to be important factors in designing comfortable seat surfaces. A small number of studies have attempted to address this;however the methods used were limited regarding the placement of their sensors. This study aimed to design a sensor array system to investigate changes in humidity and temperature for event...
Article
Summary Objective: To investigate the effects of chiropractic management of patients with symptoms of idiopathic dyspepsia. Design: Prospective, sequential, longitudinal pilot cohort study using a structured questionnaire to determine pre- and post-treatment outcomes. Setting: Private chiropractic clinic in south-west England. Subjects: Eighty-thre...
Article
The cumulative effect of playing rugby over many years decreases active cervical range of motion, especially in the forwards. This in itself should influence long-term neck care; however, it leaves the important question of how noticeable the acute effects of active cervical range of motion are following a single game. The active cervical range of...
Article
This paper introduces a potential seating comfort measurement system based on integrating temperature and relative humidity information. Placement of sensors was consistent with our previously published data with temperature and humidity sensors placed under each thigh (2 of each sensor) and the coccyx (1 of each sensor). Before the in situ trials...
Article
To compare outcomes in perception of pain and disability for a group of patients suffering with chronic low-back pain (CLBP) when managed in a hospital by either a regional pain clinic or a chiropractor. The study was a pragmatic, randomized, controlled trial. The trial was performed at a National Health Service (NHS) hospital outpatient clinic (pa...
Article
Non-contact infrared thermometry of facial skin offers advantages over less accessible internal body sites, especially when considering mass screening for febrile infectious disease. The forehead offers an obvious site, but does not present an isothermic surface, as various small arteries passing close to the surface create 'hot-spots'. The aim of...
Article
Full-text available
Context: Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga is a popular and physically demanding Yoga style. Although there is growing concern about the potential risk of injury from Yoga practice, there has been no research to date on the relationship between this form of Yoga and musculoskeletal injuries. Objectives: The first objective of this survey was to determine the p...
Article
A case is presented of a 58-year-old male whose 3-month history of insidious onset low thoracic back pain coupled with failure to reproduce the symptoms during physical examination, led the practitioner to withhold spinal manipulation until the previous X-rays could be obtained. The cause of the back pain was eventually determined to be lytic metas...
Article
This case report discusses a patient who presented with right-sided buttock pain of apparently uncomplicated mechanical origin that was eventually diagnosed as a primary Ewing sarcoma/primitive neuroectodermal tumor of the sacrum. A 32-year-old male full-time student presented for care with right-sided buttock pain. After examination, the patient w...
Article
Full-text available
In this study, we examined the effects of number of years of playing rugby on neck function. Active cervical spine range of motion and proprioception were assessed in 14 non-rugby-playing but trained sportsmen (mean age 28 years, s = 7) and 46 rugby players (26 rugby forwards: mean age 26 years, s = 5; mean years played 14 years; 20 backs: mean age...
Article
The effectiveness of IRET has been called into question. However, there are a number of factors that might affect ear temperature measurement. Some of these are the focus of this study. 366 asymptomatic subjects (0.75 to 53 years old) volunteered to take part in this ethically approved study. The data were analysed in respect to handedness, sex and...
Article
There have been a growing number of reports suggesting that ear temperature measurement is unreliable and by implication so is the device. Examination of the measurement site, the tympanic membrane (eardrum) and the walls of the external auditory meatus (ear canal) reveals that at least some of the unreliability might derive from poor aiming of the...
Article
The hip extension test may be a clinical sign of impaired motor control in the lumbar spine, which may have a negative impact on spine stability. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the interexaminer reliability of the hip extension test for suspected dynamic instability of the lumbar spine in patients with chronic low back pain. Forty-two pat...
Article
We are extremely disappointed at the level of scientific reporting demonstrated by the Ernst and Canter paper on spinal manipulation (April 2006 JRSM1). As a result, this publication does not appear to add anything to the extensive knowledge base in this area. In our opinion, there are a number of significant flaws in their review which casts an ex...
Article
To discuss the case of a patient with chronic headache. Although not in severe pain at time of consultation, signs and symptoms raised concern. The patient later had a cerebrovascular accident. A 49-year-old man with non-traumatic chronic episodic head and neck pain presented for care. Examination and plain film radiographs were unremarkable, sugge...
Article
The vital signs are an important component of patient assessment. With respect to body temperature; there has been a move away from mercury-in-glass thermometers toward the relatively inexpensive, safer to use infrared tympanic, auricular, or ear thermometer. Although already in widespread use, the reliability of these devices has increasingly been...
Article
Introduction: Chronic low back pain (CLBP) is one of the most common pain states seen in general medicine today. However, there are currently few, if any, reliable modalities that can be used in its treatment. Magnets are in common use as a therapeutic modality in the relief of a number of pain states. However, the validity of this use is relativel...
Article
It is possible that skin surface body temperature may be a better representation of the state of health of the body, than the currently used single 'core' temperature measures. As such the composite skin surface body temperature could be of medical benefit in diagnosis and for objectifying the progression of neurovascular abnormalities, such as in...
Article
There is evidence that acupuncture may be of benefit to chronic sciatica sufferers even when they have failed to respond to previous treatment by drugs, bedrest, epidural injection, physiotherapy, osteopathy, chiropractic and surgery. The benefits that have been reported in small scale studies include: reduction in medication, better return to work...
Article
To investigate whether stimulation of the auricular sympathetic acupuncture point would affect the mean maximum amplitude of evoked sudomotor responses. A placebo-controlled trial. Two types of controls were used: no acupuncture and acupuncture of an alternate "non-sympathetic nervous system" related (i.e., a non-sympathetic, placebo) point. Subjec...
Article
Intracellular electrophysiological recordings were made in vitro at 36.5 degrees C from lumbar (L4 to L6) dorsal root ganglion neurones of 6-8-week-old female rats. Electrophysiological properties were recorded prior to intracellular injection with fluorescent dye. The following showed substance P-like immunoreactivity (SP-LI): 8/19 C-fibre cells,...
Article
Intracellular electrophysiological recordings were made in vitro at 36.5°C from lumbar (L4 to L6) dorsal root ganglion neurones of 6–8‐week‐old female rats. Electrophysiological properties were recorded prior to intracellular injection with fluorescent dye. The following showed substance P‐like immunoreactivity (SP‐LI): 8/19 C‐fibre cells, 6/26 Aδ...