Patient Education

Tell me and I will forget, Show me and I may remember, Involve me and I will understand.

Education is the key to empowerment. As a clinician when doing the initial assessment, listening to a patient’s story is paramount for a successful treatment. With my international training I believe that a good assessment is half the treatment.

There is one key area of physiotherapy treatment that is unique amongst all of us, and when it is given to a patient in a way that is meaningful and impactful for them, its power in recovery is unmeasurable. This component is the part we most commonly overlook or leave until the end of our sessions when time is scarce, but is the most important part to include - patient education.

In physiotherapy just learning various manual skills doesn’t make a therapist a good clinician. Within the last two decades, healthcare literature has strongly supported a patient-centred or ‘tailored’ approach to have positive effects on patient motivation, retention of information and health outcomes.

Assessment of the patient’s educational needs, during the subjective assessment, is critical for determining how education should be tailored and structured to assist the patient. The clinicians who are unaware of their patients’ educational needs and readiness to learn have the potential to inadvertently contribute to poor patient outcomes. Patient education helps to empower our patients towards self-management and prevention.

We all know that patients’ awareness towards their exercises or their condition goes a long way compared to just prescribing an exercise without much education and explanation. Patient dropouts, poor exercise adherence and low patient compliance affects not only the patient but the clinician as well in terms of losing the patient from their clinic. A patient with better understanding about the whole situation has high chances of positive outcome along with spreading the good words about the therapist in the community.