On my Musculo Outpatient placement, I have come to realize the importance of educating patients on their condition and your treatment rationale. Many of my patients have been educated in health and the human body (nurses, lecturers, teachers etc) and with these patients, I found I was automatically explaining exactly what I was finding on my assessment as well as the rationale for my treatments and home exercise programs. However, I found when I had an elderly patient or someone I thought wouldn’t really understand, I found myself not bothering with going into much detail.
I didn’t actually come to realize this, until I had a patient come in who had been an ongoing patient for around 5 sessions. Throughout the assessment and treatment, I gave her brief explanations of what I was doing. Towards the end of the session however, she asked me if it would be much trouble if I could possibly show her a picture or a skeleton so she could understand fully what was going on (in this case, bilateral patellofemoral syndrome due to poor biomechanics at the hip and foot and muscle imbalances). She seemed much more satisfied and eager for her HEP after I had given her a much more in-depth explanation of her condition.
It made me realize that although you might assume that a person in less educated or knowledgeable about the human body, they still appreciate knowing what is going on with their bodies as well as reasoning behind what you are doing (and what they are paying for). I also think it helps make the patient much more compliant with exercises if they know exactly why they are doing them, as well as making them more confident in your knowledge and expertise.
2 comments:
That post really made me think about how much education I give to patients and different types of patients. I think most of us do simplify our explanations a bit depending on who the patient is. Understanding is the best way to gain compliance so we really should be giving good explainations to all of our patients!!
This is very true and something I've found with my patients as well. Compliance with an HEP is much higher when the patient is very clear on exactly how it will help. I think it also develops a sense of trust between the therapist and patient as well.
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