ONLINE CONSULTATIONS Three Reasons I Love Telehealth
With the COVID -19 pandemic taking the world by storm it has had a significant effect on the way physiotherapists interact with their patients. We are now relying heavily on online consultations to communicate with patients. I am doing my best to embrace this process and have realized 3 reasons I LOVE Telehealth!
Patients are comfortable in their homes and don’t have to make a special trip to see me. Often the patients I see haven’t been to a physiotherapist before and find it to be a somewhat nerve-wracking experience not knowing what the appointment entails. “Am I going to have to work out, is he going to judge me for how strong I am etc.” These feelings of nervousness are dampened with online consultations as patients feel comfortable in their own homes.
It exposes all the bullshit out there in physiotherapy practice. At @diamondphysiotherapy we perform hour long assessments and thirty minute follow ups. We are one on one with the patient, we don’t use IFC machines, or heat or ice packs. We simply rely on patient education, exercises and manual therapy. There is no reason patients should be paying for heat/ice packs or TENS machines in a clinical setting. These are all products that can be bought for a fraction of the cost of seeing a physiotherapist and that’s what we recommend.
Patients are more engaged in the important stuff (education and exercise). Evidence-based practice often outlines the immense benefit of patient education and exercise programming. This can be a major barrier in the clinical setting when patients come to me and hope for a short-term fix.
The truth is injuries and persistent pain can be complex and multifactorial. Don’t get me wrong, hands on therapy is definitely an optimum way to modulate pain and I love it, but understanding why you hurt and learning to heal yourself or manage persistent pain independently, takes engagement in education and specific exercise programming. Both work extremely well with online consultations!
Jamie Deloyer
Registered Physiotherapist