Professor Venerina Johnston, program leader for the Facilitating return to pre-injury functioning research program was a co-author on one of her PhD students’ systematic reviews of work-place interventions for the prevention and reduction of neck-pain.
The review and meta-analysis conducted by Dr Xiaoqi Chen concluded that “workplace-based strengthening exercises were effective in reducing neck pain in office workers who were symptomatic, and the effect size was larger when the exercises were targeted to the neck/shoulder. Future RCTs of ergonomic interventions targeted at office workers who are symptomatic are required. More research on neck pain prevention is warranted.”
The research article attracted media interest from the ABC as well as The Age newspaper.
