Dr. de Luca and I discuss her research on spinal pain in the elderly and chiropractic. Katie de Luca is a post-doctoral research fellow in the Department of Chiropractic at Macquarie University. She is a chiropractor in clinical practice, however her research focuses on the epidemiology and management of musculoskeletal conditions, with expertise in the elderly. In 2016 she was awarded her PhD from the University of Newcastle, School of Medicine and Public Health. Her thesis explored the experience of pain in women with arthritis, and resulted in substantial contributions to the fields of rheumatology, pain and ageing research. She has 25 peer-reviewed journal publications and more than 50 conference presentations, which includes several invited keynote presentations on back pain in the elderly. These have been at regional, national and international conferences in gerontology, pain, public health and chiropractic forums. She is on the editorial boards of Chiropractic and Manual Therapies and JMPT, and peer-reviews for another 13 journals. She has received several large competitive grants, most recently being awarded in excess of $400,00 in an industry led grant from the Australia Chiropractors Association to perform a longitudinal study on back pain in older Australians who present to a chiropractor for treatment of their low back pain. She has won many research prizes, including 1st prize at the World Federation of Chiropractic Biennial Conference in Washington DC (March, 2017). She is actively on the board for the Chiropractic Australia Research Foundation, and is the Research Chair for Sports Chiropractic Australia. She is one of only 13 CARL Fellows, a group which she is privileged to be a part of. She hopes to be a leading chiropractic researcher on spinal pain in the elderly.
View Dr. de Luca’s research at researchgate.net.
Here are the articles we discuss in this interview:
| 1. | Qualitative insights into the experience of pain in older Australian women with arthritis. |
| de Luca K, Parkinson L, Hunter S, Byles JE. | |
| Australas J Ageing. 2018 Sep;37(3):210-216. doi: 10.1111/ajag.12557. Epub 2018 Jun 26. | |
| PMID: 29947165 [PubMed – in process] | |
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| 2. | The Relationship Between Spinal Pain and Comorbidity: A Cross-sectional Analysis of 579 Community-Dwelling, Older Australian Women. |
| de Luca KE, Parkinson L, Haldeman S, Byles JE, Blyth F. | |
| J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 2017 Sep;40(7):459-466. doi: 10.1016/j.jmpt.2017.06.004. Epub 2017 Oct 13. | |
| PMID: 29037787 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE] | |
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| 3. | Three subgroups of pain profiles identified in 227 women with arthritis: a latent class analysis. |
| de Luca K, Parkinson L, Downie A, Blyth F, Byles J. | |
| Clin Rheumatol. 2017 Mar;36(3):625-634. doi: 10.1007/s10067-016-3343-5. Epub 2016 Jul 6. | |
| PMID: 27383742 [PubMed – indexed for MEDLINE] | |
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Join Dr. Kongsted and I as we discuss her unique role as an author of the recent groundbreaking Lancet series of articles on Low Back Pain as well as many other topics. Alice Kongsted, DC, PhD graduated from the University of Southern Denmark in 1999 and completed her PhD at the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Southern Denmark in 2005. Up till 2009 she had clinical work as a chiropractor alongside her academic work, mainly in an outpatient hospital department. Currently she holds a position as senior researcher at the Nordic Institute of Chiropractic and Clinical Biomechanics (NIKKB) and a position as Associate Professor at the Department of Sports Science and Clinical Biomechanics at University of Southern Denmark. At NIKKB she has set up a network of chiropractic primary care research clinics that regularly participates in data collection for research purposes, the data being made available to researchers both inside and outside NIKKB. Her research interests concern spinal pain with a focus on primary care. This includes investigating the prognosis of spinal pain and why people have different outcomes.
