Top 5 Fridays! 5 #PTProblems | Modern Manual Therapy Blog - Manual Therapy, Videos, Neurodynamics, Podcasts, Research Reviews

Top 5 Fridays! 5 #PTProblems


There are certain aspects of our profession that honestly have me scratching my head, or banging it against a wall. Here are 5 of them

1) Early patients

  • they come 15-20 minutes early and say something like "Can I hop on the bike?" or "How about some heat while I wait?"
  • SERIOUSLY? Do you just walk in to your hair stylist and ask to start washing your hair before your appointment time?
  • At your dentist, do you walk right past the secretary, sit in a chair and start brushing your teeth yourself?
2) Late patients
  • In my experience, calling and saying you're going to be
    • 5 minutes late = 10 minutes late
    • 10 minutes late = 15 minutes late
    • 15 minutes late = please reschedule, you just missed 50% of your appointment
  • do people do this for their dentist, stylist, or restaurant reservations? No... they try to make it on time, and expect NOT to be taken after a certain amount of time
  • why are we de-valued?
  • I'm sure it is perpetuated by those clinics seeing 4 people an hour per PT, if you get no 1:1 time, I'm sure appointment times are mere suggestions rather than something you have to keep
3) Maintenance Adjustments
  • Patients are so convinced that maintenance adjustments are making them better, keeping them aligned, etc...
  • to me, a biweekly adjustment and/or even worse, a monthly adjustment, is like working out once every other week or monthly and saying you're losing weight or getting stronger
4) I tried PT and it didn't work
  • do people say, "I tried restaurant and the food was bad, so I'm never eating out again!"
  • of course not, but apparently all PT is the same
  • the frustrating thing about being a better clinician is the other ones out there are ruining it for you! 
5) Intra-professional fighting or reducing different approaches
  • we don't need the DPT, or new grads not being allowed to call themselves "doctor" in the clinic
    • well, it's here to stay, get used to it
  • MDT is only prone pressups
    • If McKenzie stopped when the OMPT world criticized him, thousands upon thousands of patients would be left with passive treatments and most likely not better
  • Rocabado is just 6x6 exercise program
    • don't get me started on this
  • who needs dry needling?
    • people who improve from it
  • You don't need a big toolbox
    • I don't know about you, but the whole movement toward clinical decision making vs better toolbox is pretty myopic, it's not "VS"  
    • why not have both, it's the best of both worlds!
    • if somehow you can rely on putting all of your eggs in 1-2 baskets you're a better clinician than most
    • I certainly use much less "technique" than I was originally trained with, but to say that you don't need a bigger toolbox is short sighted, especially when you've only been out a few years
  • we all get patients better regardless of our assessment, training, and interactions, but there are patients who will not respond to your tried and true and you WILL need a different way to look at things, explain things, or treatment to get improvements to stick
Anything that you consider #PTProblems unique to our profession?

Post a Comment

Post a Comment