Monday 17 February 2020 10:49pm
Otago's Professor Haxby Abbott is setting the wheels in motion to change the way we treat osteoarthritis. Photo: Sharron Bennett.
Professor Haxby Abbott is taking to his bike in a bid to help spread his message that exercise is of great benefit to the thousands of New Zealanders who suffer from osteoarthritis (OA).
“In clinical research there’s a terrible statistic that it takes on average 17 years for knowledge from research to make it into mainstream practices,” he explains.
“We’ve known for certain since about 2002 that exercise therapy is effective for reducing OA pain and disability, but in the New Zealand health system it’s still not being delivered routinely and certainly not publicly funded routinely, in fact very far from it.
“So, I had a window of opportunity between projects to try to get that knowledge from research to make it into mainstream practice and an enjoyable physical activity like cycling was such a great fit with the message.”
"It’s such a strong case. I felt really compelled to work on how to make a ‘real world’ impact with those research results."
The message highlighted in his most recent research shows that if an evidence-based exercise therapy programme was rolled out nationally for people with osteoarthritis, it would cost a maximum of about $25 million annually, but would result in savings to the health system and significant health gains of more than $450 million annually.
“It’s such a strong case. I felt really compelled to work on how to make a ‘real world’ impact with those research results.”
Over the next month he will cycle the length of New Zealand, 3,000km from Cape Reinga to Bluff, on the 2020 Tour Aotearoa Brevet.
While he’s biking two major initiatives will be rolled out – one a high-quality evidence based treatment programme for people with OA – the other, a policy brief to inform Government, the Ministry of Health and District Health Boards on the costs and effects of doing things differently to the status quo for managing the burden of osteoarthritis.
Ranked as one of the country’s best OA researchers, Professor Abbott says cycling is a great form of exercise for people with middle-aged hips and knees. However, if you have OA he recommends visiting a physiotherapist for a good plan of treatment and progress before you launch straight into it.
A knee injury when he was aged in his late 20s, resulted in Professor Abbott taking up cycling himself, though he claims he is not a competitive cyclist – “or even a good cyclist”.
He has however, been training for his country-wide cycle over the past year, posting a 52 week blog of his progress on Facebook.
His #rOAdtrip for osteoarthritis begins today, 17 February and while looking forward to seeing the countryside, Professor Abbott hopes he can spread the word a little about what can be done for people with OA with a series of meetings planned along the way.
If anyone wants to help organise a public lecture along the Tour Aotearoa Brevet, he asks you to contact him via Facebook. He is also fundraising for further osteoarthritis research. Donations can be made here.