Physio Fanatics will be running a BeST programme. You will need an initial consultation with the Physiotherapist, and a referral letter from your Dr if you want to claim from medical aid. The course consists of a 1 hour session, once a week for 6 weeks.

Send an email to tanya@physiofanatics.com with any questions, or to book a slot.

The programme will begin on Saturday 20th July 2024

What is the Back Skills Training programme?

This programme is structured into 7 sessions, one individual session with the Physiotherapist and then 6 group sessions. Each session is designed to teach you a different skill in the steps you can take to manage, understand and learn to have control over your back pain and its impact on your daily life.

Often when you get to the stage of looking for a programme like this you have had back pain for many years and have developed your own coping mechanisms. BeST teaches you a “best practice” approach to your pain and pain management, from how often to perform daily tasks or exercise and how to progress them, understanding the mechanisms of pain and how to work with and around those mechanisms, relaxation techniques and dealing with the psychological and social impacts of your back pain (or any pain for that matter!).

When the Dr, Physiotherapist, Chiropractor and other medical professionals are not giving you all the answers you need maybe a more holistic approach is needed. The team that created this programme are aiming to do just that.

Physio Fanatics wants to help you to learn this approach.

Our team developed and evaluated a group programme called “Back Skills Training” (BeST) for low back pain.

The Back Skills Training programme was developed by a collaboration between experts in the fields of low back pain, psychology, physiotherapy, and cognitive-behavioural therapy, and patients with long standing low back pain.

The Back Skills Training programme helps people “undo” unhelpful beliefs about low back pain, and develop skills to become more active. It consists of 1 individual session lasting 60 minutes, followed by 6 group sessions of 90 minutes.
In addition to contributing to the development of the programme, patients provided feedback on the acceptability of the group format, content and materials. We also conducted in-depth interviews with patients who had received the programme in the trial to ensure that we could gain the patient perspective.
Our research demonstrated that the Back Skills Training programme reduces back pain and disability and is a highly cost-efficient intervention.

Patient reflections on the Back Skills Training Programme

“I found it very good because when you are by yourself you’re the only one with this problem and nobody else knows what you’re going through…to sit down with people who were actually the same or very similar it was reassuring that you are not by yourself and to hear how they do things and think ‘that’s a brilliant idea’…it was good.”

“…now I don’t think about it (my back), I’ve been going twice a day on the bus, that would have been unthinkable this time last year, and I go up the stairs now sometimes instead of taking the lift…you might see me in a couple of days running around the street!”

“What different people did and said helped because you learn so much through listening to other people with the same problems. I found that invaluable.”

“I found the cognitive behavioural content really interesting and it was like a lightbulb coming on really - the moment of ‘oh of course that’s why I feel that way’ and did a lot of nodding and agreeing with what was being said.”

Therapist reflections on the Back Skills Training Programme

“The Back Skills Training sets you apart from other clinicians.”

“Understanding chronic pain and why things develop like that gives you much more hope as a clinician that you can help people.”

“It has really helped me with other consultations…to manage my chronic patients.”

“As clinicians we can be didactic and tell people what to do, whereas my take on the Back Skills Training programme was trying to get participants onto a self discovery journey really with their back pain.”