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Students, support workers, physiotherapists with neurodiversity, we need YOUR thoughts and experiences about neurodiversity and your work/study

Ethics: Health, Science, Engineering and Technology ECDA HSK/SF/UH/05632

Physiotherapy students, physiotherapists from all settings and support workers who have been diagnosed as neurodiverse are invited to take part. We would like to let people tell us if/how their neurodiversity impacts upon their physiotherapy work or study. We would like people to

– Tell us about any experiences or times when their neurodiversity made a difference to their work/study

– Tell us about any changes they would like within the physiotherapy profession to help people with neurodiversity

– Tell us anything they think/would like us to know about neurodiversity and physiotherapy

People can choose how they tell us about neurodiversity. This might include:

1.To meet with one of us for an online, recorded, meeting (via Zoom or MS Teams)

2. To arrange a recorded telephone call with one of us

3. To write down or record their thoughts and experiences on this topic and send them to us

4. To let us know how they would like to take part and we will try our best to accommodate this and make reasonable adjustments

Please contact Dr Catherine Minns Lowe, Associate Professor in Research, Musculoskeletal Research unit Lead for information (written information, audio-narrated power point presentation or discussion) at c.j.minnslowe@herts.ac.uk

Please pass on to others who might be interested in taking part.


May 7th New publication just out! Watson EE, Minns Lowe CJ. Exploring the experiences of UK-based private physiotherapists when running and progressing a physiotherapy business: A hermeneutic phenomenological study. Physiotherapy, In Press Journal Pre-ProofPublished online: May 7, 2024


March 2024: Delighted to welcome new Research Fellow Lizzy Ong to the team! Great to have you here Lizzy, we’re all looking forward to working with you :-). Also welcome to Elizabeth Watson-Rose who is joining us as a PhD student with a fascinating proposal…more details to come!


Some photo’s and X’s from the CSP Annual Conferences – the full list of presentations can be found on the presentations section of this website.

Dr Nicola Heneghan presenting at the Conference in Wales

CSP Conferences 2023

In addition to Dr Nicola Heneghan presenting to the CSP conference in Wales about the toolkit, Assoc Prof Catherine Minns Lowe is presenting a poster at the CSP conference England (1st November 2023): ‘Evaluation of the pre-registration student research placements within KNOWBEST (the knowledge, behaviours and skills required of the modern physiotherapy graduate)’. Plus Mia Donovan is presenting at the CSP student Conference (24th October): ‘Physiotherapy work related well-being: a documentary analysis of the open question data from the YOURvieWS survey’. Catherine et al’s poster will also be presented at the UH School’s Teaching and Learning Conference 9th November.

August 2023. Publication of the Simulation Toolkit for pre-registration physiotherapy education/training. Developed for the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy by  Heneghan NR, Thackray D, Stiger R, Alinier G, Jennings J, Spearpoint K, Minns Lowe, C. https://www.csp.org.uk/system/files/publication_files/002042_A4_tab_Final.pdf

This is being presented at CSP Wales Conference 2023 in October where delegates will get the above business card in their delegates pack.

World Physiotherapy Congress June 2-4th 2023

We had a strong showing at WP 2023. Assoc Prof Catherine Minns Lowe presented the KNOWBEST project and simulation scoping review, Dr Mindy Cairns presented and chaired sessions, Dr Akushla Rathnayake presented her PhD research and Chris Bilsborough part of her PhD research. Also, this is the first conference we’ve attended where there was a bird of prey in the exhibition hall…

April 24th 2023, Pre-registration student Mia Donovan joins the MSK RU for a research placement, working on the Work Related Wellbeing project – really pleased she’s joining us for the next 5 weeks.

April 21st 2023 Physiotherapy Research Society Conference.  Austin Barker presented a poster from his MSc ‘Scope of practice of First Contact Practitioners and their management of persistent Rotator Cuff Related Shoulder pain’, co-authored by Caroline Coultard and Dr Mindy Cairns (supervisor)

Associate Professor Catherine Minns Lowe presented a poster at the OARSI conference (March 2023) in Denver, USA.

Work Related Well-Being (WRWB) survey launched by MSK RU to provide information about WRWB in the Physiotherapy UK Workforce

KNOWBEST Project students speak about their research placements in the MSK RU – view at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8TUT-E01go