Koadlow Community Lecture

The Koadlow Lecture is a free public event we hold annually in honour of Dr Leslie Koadlow, a passionate rheumatologist who founded our organisation in 1968 with his secretary Alice Petty and patient Mollie Riches.

Our mission – as it was just over 50 years ago when Les, Alice and Mollie began our journey – is to support people for better musculoskeletal health.

One way we achieve this is by providing valuable, up-to-date, high-quality information on musculoskeletal health and musculoskeletal conditions.

Koadlow Lecture 2024: Lifestyle choices that can impact musculoskeletal health

Join us for an eye-opening discussion on the impact of lifestyle choices on musculoskeletal health! Musculoskeletal conditions are a significant burden both individually and globally, affecting millions of lives. The 2024 Koadlow Lecture will explore the critical influence of various lifestyle factors including exercise and weight management when it comes to prevention and management of these conditions. Whether you’re looking to maintain your current musculoskeletal health or seeking ways to improve it, understanding the role of physical activity and weight management  is essential. Don’t miss this opportunity to gain valuable insights that could transform your approach to health and wellness. Let’s empower ourselves with knowledge and take proactive steps towards a healthier future!  

Presenter: Professor Rana Hinman is a physiotherapist, Professor, NHMRC Investigator Fellow and Deputy Director of the Centre for Health, Exercise & Sports Medicine. She has >20 years of research & clinical trials expertise in musculoskeletal pain, in particular non-drug treatments for OA as well as telehealth & digital healthcare approaches to increase access to care. She also serves on the Editorial Board of Journal of Physiotherapy. Rana has >350 publications and has attained >$35 million in research funding as a chief investigator. 

Duration 1 hour 15 mins

Koadlow Lecture 2024 – Watch Now!

WATCH PREVIOUS KOADLOW LECTURES ON DEMAND

Back Up: Why back pain treatments aren’t working and the new science offering hope

Back pain is one of the world’s greatest public health challenges. It is the leading reason we visit the doctor, the leading reason we take time off work, the biggest cause of disability worldwide.

In this Lecture, Liam provides an overview of many of the developments and approaches in the management of back pain. He outlines a new theory that has emerged in the last 20 years, born from cutting-edge neuroscience. It claims back pain often has little to do with the back or the discs or the spine. Instead, back pain is all about the brain. This new science offers new solutions — including, remarkably, evidence that just by teaching people the new theory of pain we can reduce it.

Presented by Liam Mannix, a multi-award-winning national science reporter for the The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. Liam is one of the many who live with back pain, and he takes his own experience as a starting point for his recently published and highly praised book of the same title.

Duration: 1 hour 26 mins

Koadlow Lecture 2023 – watch it now

MHA is grateful to Peninsula Hot Springs for sponsoring the 2023 Koadlow Community Lecture.

Working wise: Managing your musculoskeletal conditions and work

Are you currently working and have back pain, arthritis, fibromyalgia or another musculoskeletal condition? Are you having difficulty managing the two?  Our presenters tips, strategies, and resources to help you manage your symptoms, stay at work, change jobs, understand your rights and more.

Prof Anne Daly, Senior Musculoskeletal Physiotherapist, will outline what you can do to manage in the workplace and be in the best shape to maintain your working life. Ms Jessica Dawson-Field, Senior Associate, Maurice Blackburn, will cover your rights at work when you have a chronic musculoskeletal condition and what you should be able to expect from your employer. Mr Frank Imbesi, Senior Occupational Rehabilitation Consultant, AMS Consulting, will discuss what to do if you need to reconsider your work/career options.

Duration: 1 hour 26 mins
Koadlow Lecture 2022 – watch it now

MHA is grateful to Peninsula Hot Springs for sponsoring the 2022 Koadlow Community Lecture.

Making sense of disabling back pain

Presented by Prof Peter O’Sullivan, Professor of Musculoskeletal Physiotherapy at Curtin University, the 2021 Koadlow Community Lecture focused on the topic of back pain. Peter is internationally recognised as a leading clinician, researcher and educator in physiotherapy, and he has published more than 270 research papers, been keynote speaker at 100 national and international conferences and taught in 22 countries on the diagnosis and management of persistent pain disorders. In the Lecture, Peter makes sense of back pain, busts common myths, and provides some practical information about how you can become more effective at managing your back pain.

Duration: 1 hour 30 mins
Koadlow Lecture 2021 – watch it now

Additional resources provided by Prof Peter O’Sullivan post-Lecture:
– ‘Empowered beyond pain’ podcast
– painHEALTH ‘Low back pain’
– ‘Back Facts’ – Infographic

MHA is grateful to Myotherapy Association Australia for sponsoring the 2021 Koadlow Community Lecture.

Medicinal cannabis in Australia: Weeding out the facts

This free lecture, ‘Medicinal cannabis in Australia: Weeding out the facts’ features Dr Richard di Natale, outgoing Senator and former leader of the Australian Greens, and Prof Iain McGregor, Lambert Initiative for Cannabinoid Therapeutics, University of Sydney. They discuss the use of medicinal cannabis in Australia – what it is, available forms, access issues in Australia and the current evidence for use.

Prior to entering parliament, Richard was a GP and public health specialist. He has worked in Aboriginal health & HIV prevention and in the drug and alcohol sector. Richard is a strong advocate for drug law reform. Iain has a strong interest in the area of medicinal cannabis with more than 20 years of experience in cannabinoid research. The Lambert Initiative for Cannabinoid Therapeutics was formed in 2015 with a gift of unprecedented generosity from the Lambert family to the University of Sydney.

Duration: 1 hour 29 minutes
Koadlow Lecture 2020 – watch it now

Not all questions posed during the Lecture could be answered due to time constraints. Prof Iain McGregor has very kindly provided responses to unanswered questions post-event. Check out the responses here.

Musculoskeletal Australia is grateful to Spectrum Therapeutics for their sponsorship of this event. It is important to state, however, that Spectrum Therapeutics had no editorial influence over the content of the webinar.

Pain, the brain and your amazing protectometer

There have been some amazing pain discoveries over the last 20 years and they have opened up new opportunities for people in pain. This talk will explain that when pain persists, your body learns pain and becomes over protected, but you can use proven strategies to slowly retrain your pain system to be less protective. To begin, you need to rethink what pain actually is, what factors contribute to your pain and how you can tailor make your own retraining programme.

Presenter: Prof Lorimer Moseley is currently Professor of Clinical Neurosciences and Foundation Chair at the University of South Australia. He has authored 300 papers and five books on pain and rehabilitation. Professor Moseley is particularly interested on how education about pain can lead to better pain-related outcomes and strongly supports public and health professional engagement, as exemplified in such initiatives as the ‘Pain Revolution’, ‘Tame the Beast’ and ‘Body in Mind’.

Duration: 1 hour 23 minutes
Koadlow lecture 2018 – watch it now

Stem cells and muscle, bone and joint health: Hope, hype and reality

The possibility that stem cells could be used to treat osteoarthritis and many other conditions has captured our imagination. But what exactly are stem cells and how could they work to reduce pain and increase mobility? Importantly, how close are we to such treatments becoming a reality? Learn about the latest research using stem cells.

Presenter: Assoc Prof Megan Munsie, Deputy Director – Centre for Stem Cell Systems, The University of Melbourne; Head – Education, Ethics, Law & Community Awareness Unit, Stem Cells Australia.

Duration: 1 hour 24 minutes
Koadlow lecture 2017 – watch it now

Walking into wellness: The role of complementary medicine in muscle, bone and joint health

This lecture will examine the history of complementary medicine, with a specific focus on the forms and approaches that are relevant to muscle, bone and joint health and conditions, as well as general health and wellbeing.

Presenter: Professor Marc Cohen is a medical doctor and one of Australia’s pioneers of integrative and holistic medicine. He is also currently President of the Australasian Wellness Association and Professor of Health Sciences at RMIT University where he leads postgraduate Wellness Programs and supervises research into wellness and holistic health.

Duration: 1 hour 26 minutes
Koadlow lecture 2016 – watch it now

Treating pain using the brain – David Butler

Pain is a big problem. Every year it costs Australia almost as much as the entire national broadband network will. It’s also a stigma-ridden, disease-causing, family-splitting, income-sucking, mostly silent and often mismanaged, brain construction. Over the past two decades there’s been a revolution in our knowledge of how pain is made by the brain, but very little of this information has reached pain sufferers.

Much of the complex pain science can be reduced to a simple formula, “we will have pain when our brain has more credible evidence of danger to our body than credible evidence of safety to our body”.

In this presentation, David Butler will explore your danger and safety balance and how thoughts can influence inflammation and make you swell, as well as discussing the vital importance of language and how movement can be improved with pain knowledge.

Presenter: Understanding and explaining pain are David’s passions, and he has a reputation for being able to talk about pain sciences in a way that everyone can understand. David is a physiotherapist, an educationalist, researcher and clinician. He is a director of the Neuro Orthopaedic Institute – an international organisation teaching biopsychosocial based pain treatment, and a lecturer at the University of South Australia. Among many publications, his most recent books include “Explain Pain” (2003, 2013), “The Graded Motor Imagery Handbook” (2012) and “The Explain Pain Handbook: Protectometer “(2015).

Duration: 1 hour 15 minutes
Koadlow lecture 2015 – watch it now