Many of you will already know of the passing of Louis Gifford, UK physiotherapist. I take this opportunity to offer my condolences and warm wishes to Philippa Tindle and their two boys and talk about my experience of him when we were with NOIGroup in the 1990s.
Louis was one of the most incisive thinkers in physiotherapy that I have known. He was a straight shooter and had the courage to call it as it was. He truly walked the walk and had no hesitation in criticising our profession and at the same time initiated huge changes in our understanding of pain and our clinical practice, from the physical stuff, right up to our belief systems. In times of conflict and big change, Louis kept his integrity and continued on a quest for physiotherapy to start dealing with matters that it had for so long ignored.
In his discussions with Prof. Patrick Wall, Louis alluded to the fact that Wall had said to him something like this "To understand pain, we must follow the afferent impulse up from the nociceptor, along its afferent pathway, through the central nervous system and back out again into the periphery". This Louis set out to do. He read copious literature on pain and its mechanisms relating to a wide range of subjects such as intervertebral disc mechanics and physiology; peripheral sensitisation and the sleeping nociceptor; axon behaviour in the peripheral nervous system; dorsal horn and brain mechanisms; psychosocial aspects, belief and illness behaviour; even anthropological, evolutionary and genetic aspects. We even discussed briefly quantum physics, the brain and reality. He presented his Clinical Biology of Aches and Pains seminars which were truly a 'clinic changing' event for many therapists.
In my time with the Neuro Orthopaedic Institute in the 1990s, we were all working towards the pain paradigm and getting involved in the pain revolution, having the conference Moving in on Pain (1995), where Louis spoke about disc mechanisms and pain. But for me, Louis was an absolute spearhead, racing ahead with his ideas on physiotherapy and pain in such a way that expanded physiotherapy to a profession that started to deal with the 'wholistic problem' instead of just staying in our box.
I experienced Louis as a pioneer, promotor, orator and champion of the good cause.
Well done Louis and thank you so much for your contribution and influence on us. You'll be missed. But don't worry, pain is moving forward.
MICHAEL SHACKLOCK
FACP, MAppSc, DipPhysio
For more about Louis and Philippa's Topical Issues in Pain - a wonderful book series on pain
Louis was one of the most incisive thinkers in physiotherapy that I have known. He was a straight shooter and had the courage to call it as it was. He truly walked the walk and had no hesitation in criticising our profession and at the same time initiated huge changes in our understanding of pain and our clinical practice, from the physical stuff, right up to our belief systems. In times of conflict and big change, Louis kept his integrity and continued on a quest for physiotherapy to start dealing with matters that it had for so long ignored.
In his discussions with Prof. Patrick Wall, Louis alluded to the fact that Wall had said to him something like this "To understand pain, we must follow the afferent impulse up from the nociceptor, along its afferent pathway, through the central nervous system and back out again into the periphery". This Louis set out to do. He read copious literature on pain and its mechanisms relating to a wide range of subjects such as intervertebral disc mechanics and physiology; peripheral sensitisation and the sleeping nociceptor; axon behaviour in the peripheral nervous system; dorsal horn and brain mechanisms; psychosocial aspects, belief and illness behaviour; even anthropological, evolutionary and genetic aspects. We even discussed briefly quantum physics, the brain and reality. He presented his Clinical Biology of Aches and Pains seminars which were truly a 'clinic changing' event for many therapists.
In my time with the Neuro Orthopaedic Institute in the 1990s, we were all working towards the pain paradigm and getting involved in the pain revolution, having the conference Moving in on Pain (1995), where Louis spoke about disc mechanisms and pain. But for me, Louis was an absolute spearhead, racing ahead with his ideas on physiotherapy and pain in such a way that expanded physiotherapy to a profession that started to deal with the 'wholistic problem' instead of just staying in our box.
I experienced Louis as a pioneer, promotor, orator and champion of the good cause.
Well done Louis and thank you so much for your contribution and influence on us. You'll be missed. But don't worry, pain is moving forward.
MICHAEL SHACKLOCK
FACP, MAppSc, DipPhysio
For more about Louis and Philippa's Topical Issues in Pain - a wonderful book series on pain
