{
  "abstract": "Introduction Outcomes for degenerative cervical myelopathy (DCM) patients are limited by delayed and missed diagnoses, driven in part by poor professional awareness. Despite DCM being the most common cause of adult spinal cord injury, it remains under-recognised and undertaught in clinical education. Lessons from other common pathology like stroke and acute myocardial infarction highlight the potential of education to improve early diagnosis. This study will develop a professional education strategy to improve early DCM diagnosis. It will define key audiences and identify an effective delivery method, laying the groundwork for a sustained, targeted intervention.Methods and analysis The study aims to define who needs to know about DCM, what they need to know and how they can learn it. This will be carried out in three phases: phase 1—who and what: to establish the target population and to define core competencies for the educational intervention; phase 2—how: to create and review the educational intervention; phase 3—evaluation: to test whether the framework is an improvement to existing strategies.Ethics and dissemination Ethical approval is in place from the University of Cambridge (HBREC.2024.24). Results from the study will be disseminated through scientific publication, conference presentation, blog posts and podcasts.PROSPERO registration number CRD42023461838",
  "authors": [
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Munashe Veremu"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Naomi Deakin"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Active Living and Rehabilitation: Aotearoa New Zealand, Health and Rehabilitation Research Institute, Faculty of Health and Environmental Sciences, Auckland University of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand",
        "Auckland Spine Surgery Centre, Auckland, New Zealand"
      ],
      "name": "Rohil V Chauhan"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Division of Biokinesiology and Physical Therapy, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California, USA"
      ],
      "name": "Justin M Lantz"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK",
        "Myelopathy.org, Cambridge, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Georgios Toumbas"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Hounslow and Richmond Community Healthcare NHS Trust, Teddington, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Julia Tabrah"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of Orthopaedics, PGIMER, Chandigarh, India"
      ],
      "name": "Vishal Kumar"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Spinal Cord Injury Center, Balgrist University Hospital, University of Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland"
      ],
      "name": "Carl M Zipser"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Management, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada",
        "Institute for Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada"
      ],
      "name": "Joshua Plener"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Management, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada",
        "Institute for Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada"
      ],
      "name": "Carlo Ammendolia"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "School of health sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia",
        "Sydney Musculoskeletal Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia"
      ],
      "name": "David B Anderson"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of Neurosurgery, Curaçao Medical Center, Willemstad, Curaçao"
      ],
      "name": "Ellianne J dos Santos Rubio"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of Surgery, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada",
        "Department of Medicine, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland"
      ],
      "name": "Lindsay Tetreault"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "St Mary’s Surgery, NHS, Ely, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Rahul Parnaik"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Spinal Unit (UVM), Department of Orthopaedics, Centro Hospitalar Universitário do Porto EPE, Porto, Portugal",
        "School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal",
        "Hospital CUF Trindade, Porto, Portugal"
      ],
      "name": "Ricardo Rodrigues-Pinto"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Kenya Association of Physiotherapists, Nairobi, Kenya"
      ],
      "name": "Otieno Martin Ong’wen"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Myelopathy.org, Cambridge, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Ellen Sarewitz"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Myelopathy.org, Cambridge, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Iwan Sadler"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Nursing education, Elsevier Inc, New York, New York, USA"
      ],
      "name": "Theresa Roberts"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Health Sciences University, Bournemouth, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Neil Langridge"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Royal College of Chiropractors, Reading, UK",
        "Coventry University, Coventry, England, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Gabrielle Swait"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Independent Surgical Educationalist, Charlbury, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Lisa Hadfield-Law"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Health Sciences University—London Campus, London, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Jerry Draper-Rodi"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "University of Exeter, Exeter, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Lianne Wood"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Neurology Unit, Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Sybil Stacpoole"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "School of Medicine, BAU International University Batumi, Batumi, Georgia",
        "Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Mario Ganau"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "City St George’s University of London, London, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Shehla Baig"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Royal Derby Spine Centre, Royal Derby Hospital, Derby, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Antony Bateman"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Edinburgh Spinal Surgery Outcomes Study Group, Department of Neurosurgery, University of Edinburgh Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Andreas K Demetriades"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Neurosurgery, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands"
      ],
      "name": "Willem Cornelis Wilco Peul"
    },
    {
      "affiliations": [
        "Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK",
        "Myelopathy.org, Cambridge, UK"
      ],
      "name": "Benjamin Davies"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Accelerating diagnosis of degenerative cervical myelopathy through improved education: a mixed-methods study protocol from Myelopathy.org RECODE-DCM to define stakeholders, knowledge requirements and an optimal intervention strategy",
  "uid": "9e3ecdc8-4bb8-5386-b0be-773cffe37d96"
}