Dr. Mike V. Hurley

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  www.arc.org.uk/newsviews/arctdy/108/handson.htm - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 5/11/2006    Last Visited: 3/13/2007  

  Dr Mike Hurley with a patient
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  Dr Mike Hurley explains the importance of his research into knee osteoarthritis.
  
  FOR a grant of getting on for half a million pounds, Dr Mike Hurley has precious little of the hi-tech, state-of-the-art, expensive equipment vital to most researchers.
  
  In fact the most complicated bit of kit to be included in his £428,000 Postdoctoral Fellowship is an exercise bike.Not to mention the odd chair and wooden block.
  
  It might be low-tech but the grant is of high importance to the thousands of people who suffer the constant pain of knee osteoarthritis.
  
  The fact that the ARC has taken the unprecedented step of awarding a prestigious five-year Postdoctoral Fellowship to a physiotherapist - added to the fact that it's double the amount of any previous award - is evidence of the significance of Dr Hurley's project.
  
  In a nutshell, his community-based research will investigate the effectiveness of a rehabilitation package which involves exercise of the leg muscles, self-help advice and coping strategies.He will compare this approach to that of a typical GP, who generally prescribe non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs).If the rehabilitation package is proven to be successful, Dr Hurley hopes it could become available throughout the country.
  
  "One of the things we are trying to do is to give patients a quick dose of simple exercise, and see if we can help them continue to increase their physical activity once they have completed the course," explained Dr Hurley, who is based in the physiotherapy division at King's College, London, and works at Dulwich Hospital.
  
  "We don't expect older people to start going to the gym; we encourage them to walk to the shops more to get the paper, or stroll around the park, rather than take part in formal exercise.People can't be expected to rely on big expensive bits of equipment; the most we will be using will be an exercise bike, or a block they can step on and off.The exercise is within everyone's capabilities."
  
  The premise of Dr Hurley's research is that weakness in the quadricep muscles at the front of the thigh causes the knee joint to move abnormally, leading to pain.
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  The 450 people aged 50 and over whom Dr Hurley is recruiting will take part in 12 half-hour exercise sessions - including strength, balance and co-ordination exercises using a bike and other unsophisticated equipment - for six weeks under the supervision of a research worker.They will then be followed up for a two-and-a-half year period once the exercise programme has been completed.
  
  As well as the exercise, they will be given plenty of sensible self-help advice such as keeping their weight down, combating depression if the pain is bad, and how to use heat and ice packs.
  
  "It's difficult because we are trying to give people lifestyle changes, but our experience is that once they start to feel the benefits of exercise, they become willing to help themselves; they don't like relying on tablets," said Dr Hurley."The only way these patients will be helped in the long-term is by encouragement and reinforcement, so the follow-up sessions are obviously important."
  
  Patients will be treated either on an individual basis, or in a group, although in the long-term the importance of keeping down costs will probably mean that most patients are seen collectively."If we can get this project going, then working in a group could be the best way of making it as cheap as possible, which is what we need if we're going to get the regime widely implemented," he added.
  
  Dr Hurley is optimistic about the research and its wider practical application for patients with osteoarthritis of the knee.
  
  "We are not saying that we can get rid of people's knee pain completely," he said.

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  www.arc.org.uk/news/arthritistoday/139_2.asp - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 3/18/2008    Last Visited: 3/18/2008  

  Principal investigator of ESCAPE-knee pain, Mike Hurley, Professor of Physiotherapy at King's College, London, said: "From these results a vast and increasing number of people may not have to continue to suffer a very debilitating condition that is largely dismissed as the inevitable, untreatable consequence of old age.People do not have to suffer it and put up with it, they can learn to live with it, and help themselves."
  
  A total of 418 people aged over 50 who had knee pain for more than six months were recruited from 54 inner city GP practices in south London.They were randomised into different groups to compare the effectiveness of a rehabilitation programme offering exercise, self-management and active coping strategies compared to "usual GP care."
  
  Mike Hurley
  
  Those in the exercise group took part in 12 weekly half-hour sessions individually or in groups.Exercises aimed to build up the quadriceps muscle which supports the knee and improves strength, endurance, flexibility, balance, coordination and cardiovascular fitness, using an exercise bike and wobble boards.
  
  Those who took part in the exercise arms of the trial had better functioning for up to six months after completing the programme compared to those in the usual care group.
  
  Professor Hurley commented: "The people taking part in ESCAPE were unusual in that they were the typical person who knocks on their GPs surgery door looking for help; participants were socio-economically and ethnically mixed and we had no upper age limit.They also often had co-morbidities such as diabetes and heart problems; again these problems are often screened out in other trials."
  
  As the prevalence of chronic ill health increased, so did the need for safe, effective, low tech affordable interventions promoting self-management that could be delivered to large numbers of individuals.
  
  "The study also evaluated the costs of the intervention, which were shown to be relatively small and more cost-effective than usual care, so decision-makers can see that they can easily afford it," said Professor Hurley.
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  "It was very cold in the church and I always felt cold, and I had really sore knees so I got in touch with Mike Hurley," she says.

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  www.arc.org.uk/newsviews/arctdy/132/ArthritisResearchCa - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 3/13/2007    Last Visited: 3/13/2007  

  Dr Mike Hurley, clinician
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  Dr Mike Hurley
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  Dr Mike Hurley is an academic physiotherapist, arc research fellow and reader at the Rehabilitation Research Unit at King's College, London . His six-year, £640,000 arc fellowship is examining the effectiveness of exercise and self-management in arthritic knee pain.

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  www.arc.org.uk/newsviews/press/jan2001/keepmove.htm - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 1/1/2001    Last Visited: 3/13/2007  

  "The message is very clear - exercise is the best thing you can do if you have arthritis, and keeping as active and fit as you can will only do you good and will not damage the joints," said Dr Mike Hurley, a physiotherapist at King's College, London.With a grant from the ARC he is running a large-scale community-based research project in south London, investigating the effects of regular, but simple, exercise on older patients with knee pain.
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  For example, just walking a bit further than you normally do, and increasing the distance gradually, will help," added Dr Hurley.

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  queenshussars.com/schools/medicine/events/futureevents. - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 1/1/2009    Last Visited: 1/20/2009  

  Speaker: Mike Hurley, Professor of Physiotherapy

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  Arthritis Research Campaign | Focus on King's College,... - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 3/9/2004    Last Visited: 9/9/2006  

  Dr Mike Hurley
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  Dr Mike Hurley
  
  This means that although he is constantly interrupted, he doesn't lose sight of the fact that clinical research - as carried out extensively by his team and funded largely by arc - is all about helping patients get a better deal.
  
  King's College Hospital is part of the vast and sprawling Guy's, King's and St Thomas's medical school.While basic science is carried out largely at the Guy's campus headed up by Professors Gabriel Panayi and Constantino Pitzalis, clinical research, and in particularly, clinical trials, are conducted at King's by, among others rheumatologists Dr Gabrielle Kingsley and Dr Ernest Choy, with physiotherapist Dr Mike Hurley at nearby Dulwich Hospital.
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  Regular readers of Arthritis Today will be familiar with the work of Mike Hurley, the academic physiotherapist who is running a five-year £600,000-plus trial to test the effective of exercise on knee pain.Recruitment of up to 450 patients in south London has been steady, and by next year early results should be available.Dr Hurley has since been appointed an arc clinical adviser, and is also a member of the new development committee, which aims to facilitate research findings into practical outcomes for patients.
  
  Dr Hurley's work is informed by an urgency to see a change in the way care is delivered to patients.He'd like to see osteoarthritis patients able to access local referral centres where they could be taught simple self-management advice, coping strategies, how to lose weight and exercise properly; shifting their care from GPs, many of whom don't regard OA as a serious problem.
  
  He sees arc's decision to fund lectureships for non-medics as an important step to enable health professional such as nurses, occupational therapists and physiotherapists to pursue academic careers and carry out research - which cannot help but benefit patients.

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  Future events :What's on :King's College London - [Cached Version]
  Last Visited: 1/30/2009  

  Speaker: Mike Hurley, Professor of Physiotherapy

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  Guy's, Kings & St Thomas' School of Medicine: Division... - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 9/26/2004    Last Visited: 1/15/2006  

  Mike Hurley, Reader in Physiotherapy, Academic Department of Rheumatology GPPC

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  Myositis Support Group - [Cached Version]
  Last Visited: 6/7/2009  

  We now have a programme for each patient referred with Polymyositis and Dermatomyositis, this involves: a detailed clinical review by Dr David Scott and Dr Elaine Smith (senior registrar in Rheumatology), collection of serum for phosphocreatine kinase measurement, myometry for muscle power by Dr Mike Hurley (an academic physiotherapist), MR imaging and spectroscopy of the thigh by Dr Steve Williams and myself, and needle muscle biopsy for histological examination by Dr Wassif and Dr Jon Salisbury.

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  Nordic Walking - [Cached Version]
  Published on: 5/8/2007    Last Visited: 12/10/2008  

  From the Arthritis Research Campaign: - "...exercise is the best thing you can do if you have arthritis, and keeping as active and fit as you can will only do you good and will not damage the joints," said Dr Mike Hurley, a physiotherapist at King's College, London....."It's a myth that people will wear down their joints by walking on them.

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