Hands-off treatmets..Better than hand-on???

[quorthon]

maybe you are true...in fact even the "pleased" patients which had been treated by "hands-off" methods will not have the same influence to their friends or family members saying that the therapist didnt apply so much his hands on him..Despite that they got better....From a personal standpoint, physical therapy is not just "hands-on"-oriented, there are many more features incorporated, such as proper use of assessment, history-taking, patient-education which we all need to consider seriously during treatment sessions...Sometimes though, patients dont seem to like this, to tell the truth....It is common when a patient presents for a follow-up session and when he is asked if he done his exercise-programm, he said "am i really supposed to do that, since u the therapist will "fix" me???

[ophqui]

Hmm i think its just about communicating effectively. If you can make it clear to the patient that whilst soft tissue techniques etc will provide symptomatic relief but its the home exercise programme, ergonomic changes etc that will ultimately fix the underlying problem. . .then you win! Its about giving the patient the best of both worlds

I think a good physio will manage to toe the line between not laying a hand on patients and making the patient reliant on you to 'fix' them