Tag: patient

Physical Therapy Faux Pas: 5 Fixable Blunders Clinicians and Coaches Make

Faux Pas: (Noun) An embarrassing or tactless act or remark.¹   I’m not the greatest physical therapist. I make mistakes, some people don’t get better, some people get worse. Yet despite my flaws, I’ve done all that I can to minimize as many avoidable errors as possible. Errors that can put maladaptive beliefs into a client’s mind. Errors that can hinder progress. Sadly, I see many people make these avoidable errors. And I’m not talking therapists only. I’m talking coaches, doctors, chiropractors, everyone. While we can all agree that clinical errors are expected and unavoidable, many problems can be fixed simply by changing the way we think and communicate with clients. Better communication will lead to greater success for the client one, and better collaboration to those seeking to help said client. Here are some faux pas to avoid, and solutions to these problems.

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My 50th Post: Motivation to Learn

A Little Personal It is hard to believe that I have already written my 50th post after starting this blog in February as a way to enhance both my learning and the learning of others. This blog has allowed me to interact with a variety of different individuals that I otherwise would not have. And when people who I deeply respect say they admire what I have to say (or at least my version of what other people say), I am deeply humbled. But I have had several cases in which people wondered if I do anything other than physical therapy and personal training (I do). One of my former mentors came up to me saying that she was worried about me because of how much I am into this. These interactions have made me reflect on why I am reading, working, writing, and learning as much as I can. Thus, I have come to some conclusions as to what drives me to help others. And this drive, while not the norm that some of my peers are accustomed to, is far from wrong. Others are Depending on You When you work as a health professional, some people neglect the fact that your patients and clients trust their bodies with you.  They put their confidence in your knowledge and skills to show them the path to bettering themselves. When someone puts this amount of trust into me, the last thing I want to do is let them down. So I

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Lessons from a Student: The Interaction

The Inspiration Over the past few weeks I have felt called to write about an often uncovered yet extremely important component of the therapeutic process: Patient interaction. We had an instance in which I came back into the clinic from my lunch break and my intern was supposed to have a patient evaluation. Instead, she opted to have me take this particular patient. This patient was a lovely 17 year old lady who was being seen for bilateral foot pain. This was her second bout of therapy, and her and her mother was very dissatisfied with their last physical therapy experience just a few months (and 17 visits) prior. She was not a happy camper and wanted a second opinion. After hearing stories from my coworkers, I expected the worst. We progress through the evaluation, and my student observes nothing but smiles throughout from the patient and her mom. Jokes were cracked, movement was looked at, and edumacation happened. At this point, after a little explain pain and kinetic chain discussion, these women were sold. We leave the treatment room and I said “that wasn’t so bad yes?” My student replies “that’s because they are in love with you.” But really, that essentially is what you have to do with the patient interaction. You can have the greatest hands, the greatest exercise plan, and evidence up the wazoo; but if your patient hates your guts you will fail. I heard this from Patrick Ward that 80% of your success with

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