I went abroad earlier this year to China to complete a placement at a sports institute in conjunction with a supervisor and student from Hong Kong. I found it quite interesting to learn about the way the Chinese manage their injured athletes as it is very different to the way we do it here in Australia. The Chinese appear to have little to no concept of rehabilitation… And physiotherapists do not exist.
If an athlete injures themselves and requires surgery, they go through pretty much all the same steps leading up to surgery as we do here in Australia. However, once a patient has surgery, there is then no rehabilitation program that is followed in the recovery stage. We spent quite some time learning the phases of rehab following different surgeries and are taught that it plays an important part in minimising a patient’s recovery time and optimising return to function/sport. But this doesn’t exist in China’s approach to recovery. They basically have an all or none approach in that an injured athlete will rest completely if they cannot participate in sport, and once they do not need to rest anymore, they must give 100% to their training.
All injured athletes in China are managed solely by the Sports Doctor, who often has a background in a mix of Chinese and Western medicine. Next in the hierarchy is the coach, who pretty much tells the athlete when they can be in pain and when they should suck it up and train – the latter being more common. So you can imagine, it was quite a task for us as outsiders to go into the institute and try to implement rehab based injury management, by simply using out bare hands! It was an enjoyable challenge, we often had patients who we would have preferred rested but the coaches would not allow it and they simply had to train on through pain. There were times though, when the sports doctors were watching over our treatments and asking our opinions on how to manage some injuries. We learnt a lot from the doctors too, who introduced us to some intriguing chinese remedies including acupuncture and an array of herbal concoctions and injections!
In Australia, physiotherapists tend to be considered quite knowledgeable and earn a well respected position in the medical hierarchy. It was interesting to experience the difference over in China, where we were almost considered ‘nobody’s’. It’s good to be back in Oz, where other health professionals know that we at least kinda know what we’re talking about…
That sounds like a really good experiance! Being in a place that does not have a rehab program and trying to implement one would be a challenge!! It would be so eye opening to be in a place with such a different health care system and to appreciate what we have in Australia.
ReplyDeletethat sounds really interesting.
ReplyDeleteI think still there are a lot of countries that don't have the word, physiotherapy or physical therapy.
from my experience, the system of rehab. ,or physiotherapy approach in Australia is pretty much higher level than those in other countries.
I think there will be a big physio invasion in coming years in china. Especially with the growing interest in sport and the nation putting so much money into improving china's standing in world sport. they must be about ready to catch on to physios because its obvious that a good physio could improve athletes recovery process dractically. could be a lot of money to be made!!
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