Running Out of Ideas

Due to an un-eventful week at prac, I have decided to go all the way back to my first prac which was neurology. While having simple skills to treat a patient from what we were taught at university, early in my prac I felt as if I didn’t have a wide enough range of treatment ideas to either keep the sessions interesting/non-repetitive, or to find techniques that would work for different patients. As a result of this, I felt as if I wasn’t going to achieve much progress with my patients, especially since I only had one or two ideas per impairment and, of course, not every patient responds equally to them.

I discussed this with both my Curtin tutor and my clinic supervisors. While they would always be able to offer something new, I would often find that this idea would work on one, but not the other patient. So here I was again, stuck for treatment ideas that I could at least trial on different patients to see who would respond well.

Finally, I was directed toward a book that was recommended by the Curtin tutor. I picked up the book and pretty much couldn’t put it down for the rest of the weeks I was there. It provided many different ideas for treatment which I put into practice. At last, I wasn’t stuck with a lack of ideas to try.

I have found that reading any resources available to me was very beneficial for developing my knowledge base as a treating physiotherapist. It sounds like a simple resolution, but I know that there are people who wouldn’t bother reading books for various reasons (I was almost like that myself) and just rely on what they have been shown or taught at uni. This is definitely a practice that I will take into all my other pracs to assist with my knowledge. I have been doing it since and I find that it has helped to different extents on the other 2 placements.