Hawkes Physiotherapy Blog

I thought that I would write this blog article to clear a few things up about what some patients are told by some therapists.  The common thing that I hear from patients is that the therapist felt the discs were out, or were calcified and then performed a technique and go on to say that they are back in after the technique. Now I don't know where to start with this because it's just not possible based on normal human anatomy. The thing that perpetuates the myth is that whatever technique is used it can bring about symptom improvement, which I don't dispute at all. However, the statement about what it has done and why it has done it are so far off base it's crazy! So answering the first question: Can you palpate a disc? I'll let the pictures illustrate the answer below: The first problem is the depth. Look below at how deep into the body that disc is! It is not far off half way to your middle. So even if all the stuff in the way was soft and gooey and yo...

Now, with this question, it is impossible to give a straight answer! Sorry!! The reasons are many! For example there is no such thing as an average injury, in an average person, with average environmental conditions etc. Even within the same tissue types in the same person the tissues can heal very differently. So I would advise caution reading too much into the following article, but people ask “how long” all the time so I have done this as a little evidence based guide but don’t worry if you aren’t matching up to what times are suggested below! Muscle Healing: The common feeling is muscle takes between 3-6 weeks but what does the research say? Hamstring injuries: If you can walk painlessly within 1 day then you are likely to get better within 3 weeks but if it takes longer than 1 day to walk painlessly then it will take longer than 3 weeks to recover back to sport (Guillodo et al 2011). Bone Healing: Most people say that bone heals in around 6 weeks...

What are the expectation of patients? It sounds obvious but patients expect to be shown respect by their therapist, they expect to feel trust in them, for them to be punctual and compliant and take an active role in rehabilitation. However, the most important patient expectations were for symptomatic relief, self-management strategies and "hands on" treatment. In fact the nature of the treatment provided by physiotherapists was ranked as the most important (Potter et al 2003). What is the effect of patient expectation on the success of treatment? Positive expectation = Positive outcome: Linde et al (2007) found a significant association between better improvement and higher outcome expectations with placebo treatments. & Metcalfe & Moffett (2013) performed a study on 285 patients referred a peripheral joint problem and they found that higher expectations were related to greater change in functional disability and health status, and a...