Video Transcript Below

Hey everybody Greg here from FizioLogix | Rowphysio. I'm really excited to talk about today's item of business, because I think it is a vastly incredibly important topic in regards to patient care, and being a patient in an office, and knowing that you're receiving the best care and knowing that you are being provided the best care.

I have personally been in a doctor's office and had an experience that I am confident that probably every single one of you have. You are in for whether it's a headache or shoulder pain, a sprained ankle, or something. Something's going on, you're talking with your doctor, and he or she is so busy and so backed up or they're just trying to move along so efficiently, that they saying what's the problem. Now they turn away and they start typing and they're looking away they're, not looking at you.

They're, not really listening and trying to understand your experience and you don't really feel listened to. As you are trying to tell the story and engage and not only help yourself better understand what's happening but help your physician or your rehabilitation specialist, like your Pt or chiropractor or massage therapist, something may be missed. In medicine there's a tendency to go for the short subjective blurb.

Patient is experiencing blah blah blah. Patient has a pain rating of 5 out of 10. Patient’s having problems doing these 3 tasks, and then you take objective measures. How's the range of motion? How is their strength? How is their, you know when you watch their movement? How is that? Is it moving in a different movement pattern? I mean, so there are very objective things that are happening, but I'll tell you what's missing a lot of the time.

You and an understanding of what you are experiencing. An understanding of everything about your day that shapes the way that you are experiencing these symptoms. The key to really understand what you are going through when you're having an injury is to really talk and engage, and it's the challenge that medical providers, even physical therapists, end up having. They're pressed for time. They're pressed to make sure that certain boxes are checked and codes are inputted, that are saying that you know yes, I've asked these questions.

Because these are going to pay a certain amount based on these sort of results, and this is a very certain standard of care. All of that is very, very important, but the overarching piece of all of this is you, and so what you want to encourage is an opportunity, and this is what you want to encourage as a practitioner that's going to be seeing patients. What you want to encourage as a patient yourself, whether you are the practitioner being the patient or if you are the patient watching me the PT talk about this. You need to feel comfortable and you need to feel confident that your physician or that your medical provider really understands what you're going through. Because understanding of the whole self and realizing that it's not just how you feel or how strong you are, that dictates what medicine you need or what exercises you need.

That's only one little piece of the puzzle. There are many more things. How much sleep are you getting? What does your diet look like? What are the stress levels in your life? How is work? How is family? All these components that create this very just whole piece of who you are because, when you're trying to get better, if you focus on that one little piece well that one little piece may improve, but what about those other influences. Those other stressors, those other things that can actually adversely influence or negatively impact your pain or injury.

What, if those aren't dealt with? Well, we may end up having at that point is something that may turn into a chronic injury. Well, you know it gets better, I'm feeling pretty good and then it starts to get worse. And then I can do some exercises and it gets better, but then it gets worse, and so it's just back and forth and back and forth, and you can't get to the bottom of this. A large part of what may be missing is more data, more understanding, I'm not talking about the measurable data points.

I'm talking about the sociological, the psychological, the emotional inputs that are also creating the way that your body is responding. Here's one thing as a patient that I think you could do that will be very helpful in anticipation of you going into an office for a visit. That would be prepare a little bit. I'm not saying that you have to anticipate everything that your medical professional is going to ask. But what you should do is understand what hurts, how it happened, all the basics, but then maybe touch on a few other things that you think may potentially be influencing. It's not out of the realm of possibility at all that one of these other factors could be an influence and it never hurts to write it down.

It never hurts to talk about it, and it never hurts to bring it up with your physician, because he or she may find that there is an influence there. Maybe one of their patients in the past has had something that came up for them and when a particular type of change was made, it had a positive impact, and so we could potentially see the same thing with you. I see it in physical therapy all the time.

I found over the last several years, that’s something that I've been making an effort to focus in on. Then when it comes time to problem-solving and figuring out why are we making progress, but we can't quite get over that hump? Well, we can dig a little deeper and understand what may be limiting that final positive influence to give us that boost to feel better. I hope that's helpful for you.