All posts in Clinical Case of the Week

Build credibility with yourself

By 19 Oct, 2018 Clinical Case of the Week, Physical Therapy Tips

Here are 5 easy ways to help build credibility with yourself and to insure you follow through with all good intentions.

  • Make an appointment with yourself – Schedule time on your calendar each day, even if it is just 20 minutes, to do your home exercise program. Honor this time the same way you would honor any other medical appointment.
  • Reward yourself when you follow through – Improving your health is its own reward, but you may need other tangible incentives to keep you motivated on your course. Make a barter system with yourself – “For every 10 minutes I spend on this treadmill, I will get 10 minutes of guilt-free Netflix veg time.”
  • Get friends and family on board – One of my patients found the best way to correct his posture was to recruit his children, “It’s open season, kids – anytime you can catch me slouching, call me on it and I will give you a dollar.”
  • Keep it visible – Put those running shoes in a high visibility area of your home so that you have a visual reminder to gear up and get outside for a jog. Are you using a thera-band for your exercise routine? Don’t hide it – hang it in plain sight so that you are prompted to put it to good use!
  • Teach what you’ve learned – If you have mastered a new exercise or healthy recipe, share it! Pay it forward and reap the benefit of better understanding through teaching. You know you have truly mastered a technique when you can teach it effectively to someone else.

So let me know – what do you do to encourage yourself to follow through with your commitments to yourself?  Have you tried any of these suggestions before?  Do you have new ideas you’d like to share with us? Let’s support each other in making the end of 2018 and 2019 a year of abundant good health!

 

Margo Burette DPT

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Physical Therapy from the Patient Perspective

By 17 Sep, 2018 Clinical Case of the Week

Physical Therapy from the Patient Perspective

Nick Rinard is not only a colleague whom I hold in high esteem, he is also my physical therapist!  I’d like to share with you 5 things that I found interesting about my experience being a patient at our clinic:

  • The verbal reference scale for pain: It is very difficult to assign a quantitative number to pain level! Pain is such a variable experience, that reducing it to a 2 or a 4 just doesn’t completely describe the character or behavior of the symptom.
  • Assigning a score to functional difficulty: I was stumped when Nick asked me to rate the difficulty of a daily task. I now understand why so many patients struggle to respond concisely to the question.
  • The power of touch: Trusting someone to handle your painful body part can be daunting. However, I found the confidence and surety of Nick’s steady hands to be very reassuring.  I was able to quickly relax and allow him to passively move my ankle and foot.
  • Listen before acting: I had to direct my mind to an attentive listening mode rather than an anticipatory listening mode.  By this, I mean that if I was constantly attempting to guess what Nick’s next instructions would be, I was keeping my mind occupied instead of open.  Being a physical therapist, I had to step away from my usual role of planning the care, and instead actively listen so that I could follow Nick’s lead.
  • Expect greatness: Before seeking help, I had been limping around for two weeks stubbornly trying to ignore my pain. I was skeptical but hopeful that Nick could help me.  I should have expected greatness – by the next day, I was already noticing positive improvements in my gait!

Thank you for your help, Nick!  You are the physical therapist of choice for this physical therapist!

Margo Burette, PT, DPT

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