Amidst The Covid-19 outbreak the recommendations from the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy have been to cease face-to-face consultation and utilise remote consultations.
So What is Remote Physiotherapy?
Remote physiotherapy uses technology to run a consultation away from the patient. This can either be via a telephone call or more recently through running a video consultation. There are many different platforms available for these and many have different pro's and con's. So if you wish to have a Remote physiotherapy session get in touch and we can make sure a suitable platform is selected for you.
How can Remote Physiotherapy help me?
Remote Physiotherapy uses all the skills of conventional face-to-face physiotherapy to fully assess and diagnose a patient's problem. Questioning will initially establish how a problem affects you, what it restricts you from doing and what you would aim to do again if you didn't have the problem. It considers your other health and social factors. This will then guide the physical examination. Over the phone this takes a descriptive form of movements and measure of the symptom response, however with video conferencing this can happen in essentially the same way as in the face to face environment.
From here a diagnosis can be formed alongside a treatment plan. The key to this is to provide understanding to the problem and this will often offer reassurance. This can be especially important in the current climate when individuals can feel more isolated and restricted from getting guidance on health complaints. Education will occur on how the problem can be managed independently including activities to avoid or carry on with, whether to take medication for it or not, to use hot or cold, to use straps or supports and whether "no pain, no gain" is the right attitude. To further maximise your appointment a personal exercise programme will be discussed and implemented. It is possible for this to be progressed within subsequent sessions.
Obviously remote consultations are limited in the possibility of hands on treatment but this makes up a small proportion of an holistic rehabilitation programme for the majority of patients seen in face-to-face clinics (for example if a patients attends one 45minute appointment per week and the hands on treatment takes up half an hour of this, it equates to 0.29% of the week). Put into perspective like that it shows what you do at home to support the hands on treatment will really make a difference to your treatment success.
The benefits of remote consultations are that they can happen more easily around your busy schedule, taking place in your lunch break from work, if you work away from home or are on holiday and develop a problem. They can also rule out serious conditions that need further urgent or emergency assessment or treatment (which is currently allowed under the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy guidance) or make suggestions to the GP on how best to manage the condition.
If you have any questions about remote consultations please get in touch.
