I’m back. Things I’ve learned during my absence

Maintaining a blog is much harder than I thought. Major kudos to everyone who keeps up with regular blog posts!

It’s been more than a year since my last post and I am coming to the end of my Physiotherapy program. I still want to finish off the ankle sprain “series” that I started but I just wanted to reflect on some lessons that I have learned over the past two years:

Language is powerful (It might even affect how much money you save). We learned about “People First Language” last year. The idea behind this language is that we should refer to the person first rather than the condition when we talk about patients. For example, instead of saying a “stroke patient”, I would say “a patient who has had a stroke”. Or instead of saying a “chronic pain patient”, I would say “a patient with chronic pain”. Why the change in language? Especially if it is much more cumbersome to say? By referring to the person first, this acknowledges that I am treating a person, not a disease or condition. In the end, we treat people…people who are all unique and have different things they want to do in life. I think that using “People First Language” can be a good reminder for ourselves to work with patients to make goals that are meaningful for them. A post-TKA patient may need more knee flexion but a patient post-TKA may want to be able to get back to gardening. I don’t think you need to use People First Language in order to be patient-oriented but I think that language has powerful subconscious influences on the way we think.

On a somewhat related note, I remember reading this blog post about how pain science is science. Do you think there would as much of a pain science “camp” if we called “pain science” “science of pain” instead?

If pain is an output of our brains intended to protect us (Read Explain Pain by Moseley and Butler if you have not already), will someone experience more pain if they think that their bodies are broken and therefore require protection? More importantly, will someone experience more disability if they think that their bodies are broken and they need to be very careful with it? And yes, some people do end up feeling like their backs are vulnerable and need protection, according to a recent qualitative study by Darlow et al. I haven’t even graduated yet but I’ve already heard stories from patients about how other HCP have told them they can’t golf/dance/other things they love because they will wear out their backs/knees/hips. I know these HCP mean well and are just trying to be helpful…but these ideas are rather outdated. Of course, I am just hearing what the patient thinks the HCP told them, which could be different than what the HCP actually told them. It would be interesting to do qualitative study comparing what HCPs tell their patients and what their patients understand from it. What if we think we’re being careful with what we’re saying but our patients interpret it differently?

I think this is what it means to truly empower patients to take better care of their health.

During PBT, it is expected that we bring in primary literature and incorporate it into our discussions with a critical eye. It has become easier to find limitations in each study. The tables were turned on us though when we had to do a research project in the last unit of our program. It was no walk in the park! We only worked on it for ~4 months but I already have a much greater appreciation of what it is that researchers have to do. Thank you to all the researchers out there who help to answer the questions we have.

There you have it. A glimpse into what I’ve learned from my past two years at PT school. There is more but I think it would take me a while to write it down concisely and I don’t want to procrastinate on blogging anymore :). What major lessons have you learned in the past year?

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