Education for Clients
Physiotherapy (Physical Therapy) is low cost, low risk, non-invasive care that works.
One important thing for every client to remember is that their attitude (positive, optimistic, determined) has a tremendous effect on their outcome. Clients/patients with lower expectations for recovery were more likely to have a poor outcome compared with those with higher expectations, and this is also consistent with previous LBP prognostic study findings.
It is important for our clients to become as educated as possible regarding their condition (pain, injury, loss of function, etc). The better our clients understand their condition, the better they can help manage it themselves. Even if you are not a client of Evolution Physiotherapy, we hope our website and resources can help you help yourself.
We have started our new website highlighting three very important areas that we treat: chronic pain, concussions, and anterior knee pain (often labelled patello-femoral pain syndrome or PFPS). If there are other conditions or areas you would like to see in the future, please send us your feedback.
Chronic Pain
Chronic pain is defined as pain that has lasted for more than 12 weeks. It is more prevalent than diabetes, cancer, and heart disease combined. It may affect up to 33% of the population, including 25% of children.
Approximately 1 in 4 of us have a chronic pain state which defies tissue healing. Pain researchers have strong evidence to support pain education as one of the most cost-effective, safe, and useful treatments for chronic pain. It is more effective, and of course, much lower risk, than opiods. It can be used on clients of all ages.
An easy initial step is to test your pain knowledge. Click here for a Pain Questionnaire which includes 13 questions and answers about pain. Don’t look at the answers before you have answered the questions. See how many you get correct. Many healthcare professionals don’t score very high on the questionnaire. We don’t receive much pain education in school. We need to learn this information through post-graduate courses, conferences, new books, and research articles.
If you have chronic pain, or know someone suffering from chronic pain, we have put together a list of resources they can start learning from.
Concussion
If you have just sustained a possible concussion, consult the Heads Up Concussion Action Plan and the Heads Up Concussion Parent Athlete Information Sheet, and read over the Concussion Danger Signs on page 2 of the Information Sheet. (links will be sent Tuesday morning)
Click here for a list of Ottawa-area physicians with specific training in concussion management. (link will be sent Tuesday morning)
Evolution Physiotherapy has 4 Registered Physiotherapists with post-graduate training in Concussion Rehabilitation. See our Concussion Management Program section for further information.
Anterior Knee Pain / Knee cap pain (PFPS)
There are many structures that can cause anterior knee or knee cap pain. However, when it comes to making treatment decisions for most anterior knee problems, there is good evidence that active rehabilitation and appropriate physiotherapy interventions (seeing a physiotherapist who understands how to reduce load, improve capacity, and optimize your functional movement) can be helpful. See the following video for 5 tips to treat knee cap pain.