Skip to main content
AAPM&R 2025 Main banner
JFK
Final Program


Official Program
Icon Legend
This session is not in your schedule.
This session is in your schedule. Click again to remove it.
Presentation Icons
On Demand
On Demand
In-Person
In-Person
Livestream
Livestream
Invite Only
Invite Only
Ticketed
Ticketed
Coffee Break
Coffee Break
Meal
Meal
Reception
Reception
Rate ePoster

Musculoskeletal and Sports Medicine

Temporality of Musculoskeletal Pain: An Analysis of Internet Help Seeking Behavior

Thursday, October 23, 2025
12:45 PM - 2:15 PM MT
Location: Kiosk 7

    Poster Presenter(s)

  • Matthew R. Allen, Other

    Medical Student
    University of California San Diego School of Medicine
    La Jolla, California

    • Co-Author(s)

  • Milan B. Oxspring, MD

    Resident Physician
    Mayo Clinic College of Medicine & Science (Rochester) PM&R Program
    Rochester, Minnesota

  • EA

    Eliza Allen, Other

    Patient Care Coordinator, Nursing Student
    Summit Brain, Spine, and Orthopedics; BYU College of Nursing
    Cedar City, Utah

  • Christopher W. Lewis, MD (he/him/his)

    Assistant Professor Specialty Chief Clinical Information Officer in Rehabilitation Medicine
    University of Washington, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine
    Seattle, Washington

  • Cynthia M. Castro Sweet, PhD

    Senior Clinical Research Director
    Hinge Health, Inc.
    San Francisco, California

Disclosure(s):
Matthew R. Allen, Other: No financial relationships to disclose
Milan B. Oxspring, MD: No financial relationships to disclose
Eliza Allen, Other: No financial relationships to disclose
Christopher W. Lewis, MD: No financial relationships to disclose
Cynthia M. Castro Sweet, PhD: No relevant disclosure to display
Background and/or Objectives: Musculoskeletal (MSK) conditions affect 1 in 2 adults in the U.S. and accounts for ~$874 billion in annual healthcare costs. As patients increasingly seek health information online, understanding how often and when people search for MSK-related concerns can inform educational outreach and resource allocation. This study aimed to quantify longitudinal changes and identify temporal patterns in internet help-seeking behavior for MSK pain and physical therapy in the U.S.

Design: Retrospective, population-level study

Setting : U.S.

Participants : Internet users

Interventions: Not applicable

Main Outcome Measures: Relative search volume from Google Trends for “pain” (back, neck, shoulder, hip, knee) and “physical therapy.” Time-series analysis was used to assess growth, weekly, and seasonal trends.

Results: From 2014–2024, relative search volumes were highest for back pain followed by physical therapy, knee pain, neck pain, shoulder pain, and hip pain. Growth was greatest for hip pain (+51.3%), followed by knee pain (+44.7%), shoulder pain (+41.9%), neck pain (+40.0%), back pain (+34.7%), and physical therapy (+27.3%). Physical therapy searches decreased ~45.2% during the onset of COVID-19. Across MSK pain terms, searches were consistently higher Sunday–Thursday and lower Friday–Saturday. Monthly patterns showed summer peaks for hip and knee pain, while back, neck, and shoulder pain exhibited bimodal peaks in January and July. Physical therapy searches peaked Monday-Friday and declined >50% on weekends, with notable drops in November and December.

Conclusions: Internet search interest in MSK pain and physical therapy has increased over the past decade with consistent weekly and seasonal patterns. These trends highlight opportunities to better align digital health messaging and service delivery with patient behavior and public interest, for instance by timing digital outreach for back pain to align with Sunday/Monday search peaks or deploying content about knee pain in the summer. Subsequent work should assess the quality and characteristics of content found by those seeking help for MSK pain online.