Education

Something I’ve observed during my placements this year is that no matter what area you are in – outpatients, rehabilitation or inpatients, there are always home exercise programs that don’t get done and patients that don’t show up to gym sessions or outpatient appointments. Often excuses have been given to me or other students I’m at prac with, that really aren’t worth the air they are spoken with.

Looking back at all the situations I’ve encountered throughout the year, it has given me a couple of opinions. Firstly, there is only so much that we as Physiotherapists can do for a patient. We can do our manual techniques and we can prescribe exercises that will really benefit the patient. However, there are some personality types that just won’t do it. Whether they can see the benefit it will have for them or not is another thought all together. So it got me thinking that perhaps education is an aspect of management which is even more important than I have given it credit for. If I can provide patients with even part of the knowledge I have gained over the years and explain to them why turning up to sessions and doing home exercises is so important, these people might just pay attention and start doing what we ask of them. I have had one supervisor in particular who would spend maybe half of the treatment time educating the patient and he would swear by this method for gaining compliance and positive results. He has even said that his mentor would do the same thing and have exactly the same results with their patients. I definitely think it is something which I will take into consideration for my future and try to employ whenever I have the chance…just to see how it works.