About The Rehabilitation Medicine Group

The Rehabilitation Medicine Group (The RMG) develops online rehabilitation programs for people living with persistent pain, particularly when pain continues after surgery or despite treatment.

Our programs are designed for people who have “done everything right” but are still struggling with pain, movement, confidence or participation in enjoyable activities.

Rather than focusing only on a body part or scan result, The RMG programs use a rehabilitation medicine approach which includes helping people understand why pain persists and learn practical, evidence-based strategies for recovery.

Pain rehabilitation is a medical approach used when pain persists longer than expected and recovery has not followed a straight forward path.

Instead of treating pain as a simple signal of damage, rehabilitation medicine looks at how pain is produced and maintained by the nervous system alongside physical, psychological, and social factors that influence recovery.

This approach is commonly used when people experience ongoing pain, activity avoidance, flare-ups, disrupted sleep, or loss of confidence despite healing of tissues.

The Rehabilitation Medicine Group was founded by Dr Nathan Johns, a specialist Rehabilitation Medicine Physician with over 20 years’ experience working with people living with complex and persistent pain.

Throughout his clinical career, Dr Johns has repeatedly seen people whose recovery has stalled, not because surgery had failed, but because pain had persisted in ways that their rehabilitation did not fully address.

This experience led to the development of research-led, online rehabilitation programs designed to improve access to pain rehabilitation beyond traditional clinic settings.

The RMG’s flagship program, Kneed, was developed during Dr Johns’ doctoral research at Monash University and evaluated in a randomised controlled trial.

This research, alongside decades of international evidence in pain science and rehabilitation medicine, underpins how all of The RMG’s programs are designed.

The focus is not quick fixes or motivation-based recovery, but education, skill development and safe self-management over time.