’Stages of Care’ – let’s put words to what you may already be thinking about your patient.
When a patient presents in the clinic, pointing to a very specific area, it becomes obvious where your attention should go on that visit. But what about when they come in, and the pain is less and maybe even somewhere else?
There is a simple way to think about their progression that allows you to concentrate on what is important and spend your time on that, which also allows you to digress in ever-wider circles to ensure full recovery and maybe even eventually consider overall health and wellbeing.
The principles for this are well-known to us all; the focus just needs to be a little clearer to allow your decision-making to be clearer, too.
Examples of this could be when to consider the extremities in patients, where this may not have been their primary reason for coming to the clinic – or – when to work on viscero-somatic reflexes or include strengthening in their rehabilitation.
