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Wednesday 13 May 2015

Participants sought: back pain and driving

The Allied Health Research Unit at Monash Health is seeking volunteers who have back pain and who drive for about two hours per day as a part of their job to assist in a study investigating the association between lower back pain and prolonged driving.

Who can be involved: 

To be a part of this study you need to have back pain and drive for about 2 hours per day as a part of your job. This does not need to be in one session but may be spread over the day. Unfortunately you cannot be a part of the study if you have an allergy to tape as we need to attach movement sensors to your skin.


What do you need to do:

You will be emailed questionnaires about your back pain for you to complete in your own time. We will then make a time to meet with you (at a place convenient for you) and fit the Vi Move three dimensional movement sensors (this will involve adhering four sensors smaller than a mobile phone to your lower back below the level of the waist, half way up the back and in-between these two points) (15 minutes): have measurements of your sitting posture and leg length taken (10 minutes): have measurements of your existing car seat taken including a photograph of your existing car seat (10 minutes). You then wear the Vi Move movement sensors while driving the car as a part of your job for the remainder of the day and communicate via telephone to research personnel regarding any pain you experienced whilst driving that day. 
  
Lower back pain is a leading cause of disease burden in Australia. Direct health care costs of lower back pain are in excess of $1 billion annually, though these are dwarfed by indirect costs (primarily time off work due to back pain) which are estimated to be eight times as large. There is still uncertainty as to how prolonged driving causes lower back pain even though associations between driving automobiles for extended periods or driving as an occupation and development of lower back pain have been established since the 1970’s. To better understand how driving can modify posture, back function and back pain we are looking at back pain and posture in people who drive as a part of their job.

To thank you for your participation you will receive two Gold-Class Movie Vouchers.

If you would be interested in finding out more please contact Kelly-Ann Bowles at kelly-ann.bowles@monash.edu.

This study has full ethics approval from Monash University Human Ethics Committee.

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