How to Make the Most of a Physiotherapy Assessment

The first step in recovering from several painful and incapacitating conditions is a physiotherapy assessment.  One can sit back and let the physiotherapist do all the work.  However, more accurate and positive results will come of the physiotherapy assessment if the patient becomes involved.  

When you go in to the physiotherapy appointment, your doctor should have given the physiotherapist some idea of your condition.  The physiotherapy assessment will begin when the therapist takes a medical history.  This is standard procedure for any type of health related problem.  It is wise to be thorough in explaining past problems and conditions that seem to run in the family.  

This can have a bearing on your treatment.  It might even point to some disease or disorder that no one suspected that you had.  A thorough physiotherapy assessment could possibly lead to treatment by a physician for an unexpected illness.  You might find out that, while physiotherapy is bad for very few people, it is not what you need the most.  

Then, the therapist will ask questions about your present condition.  She will want to know when the pain, stiffness, or other problems started.  She will ask you just how much it hurts, having you grade your pain on a scale of one to ten.  One means no pain and ten means the worst pain you can imagine.  The physiotherapy assessment will go on with your hypotheses of what caused it all.  

The accuracy of your physiotherapy assessment rests on the precision with which you answer these questions.  Telling the therapist that the pain is at a level of four when you know it is more like a level of eight will lead her to treat your pain less aggressively.  It will be as if you had no physiotherapy assessment at all.  

However, if you are able to correctly measure your degree of pain, you will help the therapist understand your problem.  When the therapist knows when the problem began and has an idea of what caused it, the physiotherapy assessment will reflect that information.  

Then, the therapist will watch you move.  For a person who does not wish to be seen as weak, it may be a challenge to walk and do other movements as the person does them when no one is watching.  In other words, a person with a sore and stiff neck may try to move it normally in order not to seem like an invalid.  

You will be put through a series of movements that may seem cruel to you.  It is a part of a good physiotherapy assessment to show all the movements done as best you can do them.  If you can barely do them, that tells your physiotherapist a great deal of information.  

It is best that the physiotherapy assessment covers all these pains and conditions.  The way to make the most of a physiotherapy assessment is to be as honest and accurate as possible.  It is only then that you will get the best care.  
