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Find out more information on ESCAPE-pain.
Contact usSupported self-management programme continues to help sufferers with joint pain, and improve physical activity levels
We led the scale up of the musculoskeletal pain intervention, ESCAPE-pain, from 2013 to 2021, when the programme was licensed to Orthopaedic Research UK.
It has continued to go from strength to strength, and the programme is now running at over 250 locations across the UK and Ireland. Through its programmes for people with chronic back pain, knee and hip pain it is delivering reductions in pain and improvement in quality of life.
Here we are pleased to share the headlines from our evaluation of a large project funded by Sport England and Versus Arthritis. The evaluation showed that the ESCAPE-pain continued to be clinically effective when delivered in community venues including sports clubs and local halls, when facilitated by suitably-trained fitness professionals. Participants benefited from improvements in pain, physical function and mental wellbeing, which were sustained for 12 months after the programme. Furthermore the study showed that ESCAPE-pain was effective in increasing physical activity amongst older adults with knee or hip pain, with the majority of participants remaining active 12 months after the programme. There was also a reduction in the use of health and care services related to knee and hip pain.
The report offers commissioners and service providers an alternative way to i) drive down costs related to knee and hip pain, ii) deliver group physiotherapy interventions in light of long physiotherapy waiting lists and lack of physical space for physiotherapy and iii) help older people with joint pain to become more physically active.
