Injured? PT may help but avoid these things

The Choosing Wisely Campaign was started several years ago by the American Board of Internal Medicine as a way to help consumers make decisions about medical care by providing information related to medical tests and measures that tended to be done frequently, but were not shown to add value or improve outcomes. Recently the American Physical Therapy Association contributed their top 5 list of procedures that patients and therapists should question.

5 Things Physical Therapists and Patients Should Question( in addition to not requesting low back x-rays for low back pain) are:

1.  Don’t employ passive physical agents except when necessary to facilitate participation in an active treatment program(see number 1 below)
2.  Don’t prescribe under-dosed strength training programs for older adults. Instead, match the frequency, intensity and duration of exercise to the individual’s abilities and goals. This means older adults are not frail! They still can develop strength and flexibility as long as they are prescribed challenging(and appropriate) enough exericses!
3. Don’t recommend bed rest following diagnosis of acute deep vein thrombosis (DVT) after the initiation of anti-coagulation therapy unless significant medical concerns are present.
4. Don’t use continuous passive motion machines for the postoperative management of patients following uncomplicated total knee replacement. We would rather have you out
5. Don’t use whirlpool for wound management.

 

I'd also like to add 5 Things that You Should Expect from Therapy:

1. Be an active participant. Many interventions performed in the clinic are designed to be complemented by a home exericse program. If you don't do it, the likelihood of success is reduced.
2. Expect a discussion about your aerobic exercise and stress levels, eating and sleeping habits and overall health. Physical therapy works best when you are addressing all of the elements of health.
3. Don't quit when the pain goes away. With injuries ranging from ankle sprains to low back pain, the recurrence rates are very high which has been attributed to continued physical impairments that were not resolved even when the pain went away. Your therapist will give you a home exercise program that you should continue until it becomes easy.
4. Therapists may utilize manual techniques, such as massage, joint mobilizations or dry needling to help assist in improving your motion and mobility. They are not massage therapists, chiropractors or acupuncturists. That means that you should expect to only receive one of these interventions.It's utilizing them in conjunction that is most effective.
5. Therapy cannot fix stupid. Okay so this last one is said tongue in cheek but seriously. If you continue to injure and re-injure yourself doing the same thing why do you think therapy is going to fix you. We may be able to modify how you're doing it but a lot of times, it's nature saying that you need to pick up a new hobby(my thoughts on the feasibility of endurance athletics).

 

One last thing to expect:

 

Amber giving it her all in Kona on October 11th. Stay tuned!

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