You have probably heard people making comments saying ‘physiotherapy doesn’t work’ or ‘chiropractic doesn’t work’. These are fair opinions but that is all they are: opinions. Let’s be real. Treatments fail for a lot of reasons and today we want to share with you five ways to get the most out of your physiotherapy or chiropractic treatments.
1. Know what you want to achieve out of therapy
This applies to everyone no matter what treatment you are currently receiving.
We make all of our clients go through a goal-setting process. You’ll be surprised that most people struggle with articulating what they want to get out of chiropractic treatment.
Sure, you want to be pain-free. But to what extend? At the end of the day, under enough load and stress, your body will hurt one way or another. Even if you are currently a perfectly healthy, pain-free individual.
So, in what context do you want to be pain-free?
Do you want to be able to sit for eight hours without neck stiffness or lower back pain?
Do you want to be able to run 2.4km in 10 minutes without knee pain?
A lot of clients will insist that they just want to be “get better”. Think about it, if you cannot articulate what getting better means to you, how can you know if a treatment is working for you?
2. Make recovery a priority
We also do ask all of our clients, on a zero to ten point scale, how determined they are to achieve full recovery.
This is not an arbitrary question. This tells us exactly how high recovery is on your priority list and, in knowing so, we can design a recovery plan that will be reasonable for you.
If getting better is not past the half-way mark on your priority list, we suggest you don’t start treatment.
Treatment takes time, treatment costs money, and successful treatment will require you to prioritise both time and money for it.
Too often we see clients getting very good results dropped out of care. They stopped replying emails and they stopped our text messages. They stop coming for their appointments. The end result? Their treatment stagnates and, most of the time, fail.
We live in Singapore. We work one of the longest hours in the world. We also need time for our friends and family. I do not contest that.
As a business owner, I completely understand that time is a limited resource.
Unfortunately for you, recovery isn’t going to happen on its own. You have pain for a reason. I can provide the expertise to address what it takes to get you get better. But at the end of the day, the results come from the hard work you put in.
Some clients are lucky and they get away with poor exercise or treatment compliance. Most clients, however, are not so lucky.
Over 80% of our clients achieve full recovery in four to seven visits and most of the cases we see are chronic pain/injuries lasting anything from two to over ten years. It WILL take time and commitment.
So, if you want to get better. Make recovery a priority. Don’t waltz in and out of treatments just because of how you are feeling that day or how you are managing your symptoms for the week.
Think further ahead.
3. Take ownership of your recovery
We run a transparent and honest chiropractic clinic. Most of our clients achieve such great results because they work in collaboration with us.
There are times when we ask clients what they want to achieve, their exact words were “I would like to “cure” the back pain. Whatever it is.”
If you refer to point #1, you would know that that is an unacceptable goal. When probed further about their reason for seeking care at Square One Active Recovery, the response was “because X referred me.”
This greatly offends us because while some one may refer you to our care, the decision to make an appointment is yours. Be responsible for your own treatment choices!
It is your prerogative who you choose to seek care from and you should do your due diligence! At the end of the day, you are the one who bears the consequences of the treatments you receive.
We spent hours with this specific client to talk through their recovery plans. (No, we did not charge them for that.) A month later, they finally decided that they would seek care with a chiropractor that would crack and align their spine.
We were genuinely happy that they decided to make a decision of the treatment they want to pursue. For us, this is important. Seeing a chiropractor or a physiotherapist just so some one referred you just isn’t going to cut it.
Take ownership of your recovery. If you are going to chiropractic clinic X or physiotherapy clinic Y for care, make sure it is a decision that you come to on your own accord.
4. Be collaborative with your chiropractor or physiotherapist
You should listen to what your chiropractor or physiotherapist recommends you. It really doesn’t make sense to pay a professional for his or her service then decide to do things your own way anyway.
For example, we had client with knee pain a while back who was getting results way better than what she did from her past physiotherapist. It would make sense, at this stage, for her to follow our advice, right?
We work very closely with all of our clients via WhatsApp. Most of the time, we follow up with them every few days.
Imagine my surprise when I found out that this particular client was writing her own exercise program for the problem she is currently seeking care for. Instead of doing what we prescribed, she would go on Google to find what she considers better alternatives.
We had multiple conversations about this being an ineffective approach to treatment. The exercises we prescribe for her, or even you, are based on what is most likely to give you the best outcomes given your current situation.
She didn’t stop with her own Google-inspired rehabilitation and she definitely didn’t get better.
If you were to talk to us about making changes to your exercise program, we will most likely accommodate if it is reasonable. If it isn’t, we will 100% explain why that will not work.
At the end of the day, we had to refer her on to some one else.
I don’t believe she is better yet.
The moral of the story? Listen to your chiropractor or physiotherapist. If you decide to do things on your own, bring it up to your clinician FIRST. Most of the time, we will have an opinion on your desired course of action.
If it doesn’t work out, seek care with some one you can have a collaborative clinician-patient relationship with.
5. Use the free resources provided by your physiotherapy or chiropractic clinic
We run free workshops on a monthly basis and these workshops are designed to be educational for you.
We also have the most the most updated musculoskeletal care blog in Singapore. All of the information are provided to you free – regardless of who you are – and adequately referenced to specific scientific studies for easy fact checking.
On a more personal level, we follow up with all of our clients via WhatsApp and provide advice as necessary.
If you are seeing a half-decent chiropractor or physiotherapist, he or she would have also laid out similar resources or channels for you to optimise your recovery. If not, seek care elsewhere.
These are free resources and the perfect platform for you to educate yourself on your specific pain or injury.
Like I said earlier, I understand time is a limited resource. This blog entry would take three hours to complete – two hours into late last night and one hour of my lunch today.
At the end of the day, how much you put in will determine how much you get out of it.
These resources are available to you for free but they take time from our part to create. We provide them so you can optimise your recovery and save money in your course of treatment. All it takes is time and also effort on your part.
Recovery is hard work
Recovery is hard workThere is no denying that recovery is hard work.
Your pain or injury is affecting your life therefore you are thinking of seeking professional help or perhaps you are already in the midst of seeking care.
To get out of that, it takes time, effort, and money at the very least.
As much as our competitors would like you to believe otherwise, there is no short cut and easy way out of this. We are certain of that.
What we try at Square One is to make it easier for you to get better, for less money.
Have a think about our suggestions and if you have any questions, do not hesitate to reach out to us via our contact form below.
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