While on my musculo placement, I had a patient who has moderate knee pain due to degenerative OA. Her initial complaint was primarily 3/10 knee pain and recently decreased functional activities such as walking and cooking due to the pain. I performed a relatively full assessment of the knee and the significant finding was that she has deformity of the (L) knee, Varus, and slightly swallowed (L) knee. I treated this with EPA and strengthening exercises for VMO and quadriceps, which made her feel better after the treatment.
I saw her few days later, the pain level was pretty much same as before treatment. However, I treated this patient with slightly increased intensity of EPA and I continued on with education of functional activity, which was not effective that much as I thought.
It was decision time whether I discharge this patient or not. It was hard because I spent a lot of time for treatment that was not working obviously even though I knew that I cannot cue OA. After this patient I realized that physiotherapy has limit line for some disease and we cannot change it. We have to admit it.
1 comment:
I think one of the most challanging treatments for a therapist is the decision not to treat. It perhaps takes more thought and clinical judgemnet than treating.
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