The end of my research is near, and that means there's only a limited number of dog gifs left. But don't be sad- here's a dog gif to begin this post!
My question this week: what are all the different types of patients who come in to CAP? By this I mean what are the different reasons/injuries which motivate patients to come in for physical therapy. The majority of patients who come in are geriatric patients who want to reduce day-to-day pain or athletes trying to get back to playing.
I noticed that there are four basic categories of patients, the two aforementioned, pre-operative patients, and patients who suffer non-sports related pain. The geriatric patients tend to come in for arthritis, knee-replacements, and other age caused pain. Their number of appointments are usually longer, since they don't have time pressure to return to a previous performance capability. On the other hand, the athletes who come in for rehab do need to return to their original, pre-injury state to participate in their sport. Most of the athletes have tears in ligaments such as the ACL, Achilles, or LCL, all central to knee and ankle function. There are also less serious sports injuries treated such as soft-tissue sprains and tendinitis or other tightness in the IT band or general knee/hip area.
The pre-operative patients may also be in the geriatric/athlete category, but they are in physical therapy for preventative measures before their surgery rather than reparative. The common knee/hip surgeries that warrant pre-operative therapy are knee or hip replacements and ligament repairs. As for patients who are neither geriatric nor sports-based, the injuries treated range from general joint pain or knee/hip tightness to sprains caused from simple accidents that are outside of sports.
All these different types of patients come in for a range of time until recovery/improvement and for various times per week and hours per appointment. Next week those are the numbers I will be looking at to finish my research. See you then!
hello carla!!! it is so exciting to read about your research. i was wondering what sports are related to certain injuries? Also what sport do you see the most?
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like another great week along with an excellent question. What is the most common type of sport injury that you have noticed generally so far? Can't wait for next weeks post!
ReplyDeleteIt completely slipped my mind that people other than athletes also are patients of physical therapy! What are the common injuries patients that are undergoing physical therapy have? Can't wait to see what your final post will look like!
ReplyDeleteDo the athletes that come in usually have more severe injuries than a normal patient? Are the athletes' pain threshold more than a usual patient? I am glad that you are almost done with your research and I hope you had a fun and informative senior project.
ReplyDeleteHey Carla! After spending your time researching and observing, has there been anything that has stood out to you from this experience? Has there been anything unusual or unexpected that has occurred?
ReplyDeleteHi Carla! Are there certain age groups for each of the four categories of patients? Do younger patients tend to be athletes?
ReplyDeleteHello. In this post, you said that "Most of the athletes have tears in ligaments such as the ACL, Achilles, or LCL, all central to knee and ankle function." Can you explain why?
ReplyDeleteDo you find that certain types of patients work harder to recover, or that perhaps the pressure to recover quickly can actually be harmful for athletes?
ReplyDeleteThis was a great post, and I liked your analysis of the 4 basic groups of patients. Were there any patients that stood out, or didn't quite fit into these categories?
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