red and yellow flags

[Ghamdinh]

hi all

can any one tell me the meaniing of red flag and yellow flag and what's the defferences between them?

regards

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[Rachie]

Hi Ghamdinh,

The flags are used in clinical assessment to indicate possible serious underlying pathology (for red flags) and psychosocial issues (for yellow flags). The following link http://student.bmj.com/issues/03/04/education/97.php gives a brief summary on the bmj's student page.

However this list is not exhaustive, as there are now orange (severe psychological), blue (socioeconomic) and black flags (occupation)!! The following link gives a very brief explanation www.rcplondon.ac.uk/pubs/clinicalmedicine/0206novdec/0206_nov_conf1.htm if you go to the "psychosocial barriers to recovery" section. I think red and yellow are still most commonly used in clinical, with the other flags being relatively new.

Hope this was of use,

Rachie

[Ghamdinh]

thank you very much, i appreciate that.

[steph87]

Hey
red flags are medical and yellow flags are psychosocial
Red flags indicate that physio is not the correct treatment for this person and they need to be referred on. Example is fracture, infection, inflammation and cancer. so if a patient comes to you with any of the symptoms for these we must refer them on immediate as they are often conditions that can lead to bad outcomes and it is our job to pick them up

Yellow flags are more psychosocial and are involved in more central problems then peripheral. These include reasons why a person is not getting better, which are not related to the bodies healing process. If someone has these problems hands on treatment isnt going to help, they need psychosocial hlep. i know some of them are - attitudes, beliefs, compo, family, work ...

[Ghamdinh]

hi steph87
Thank you for your response