Communication is Key to Pain Relief at Back and Body Medical
Having the knowledge, education, know how and experience in treating patients for their pain is obviously vital for us to perform our duties here at Back and Body Medical in Manhattan. There is another component that is equally as important in helping a patient get back to full fitness and out of pain. Communication. Communication is key to pain relief.
Why is communication key to pain relief?
There’s a couple of reasons why communication is vital and this will bring out three key points that will really help the patient understand what is happening and why.
Firstly, it helps the patient understand what is going on and the reasons for the specific treatment.
A patient may come in with a low back pain complaint. The patient most likely believes the problem is within the low back area, but this may not be the case. The pain is the result of some kind of problem, but that problem may be caused elsewhere in the body.
So we communicate with the patient, we understand their complaint and pain points and then examine them. We determine the problem and then we treat it. This particular problem may in fact be caused by a hip rotation and so we would adjust the hips. If we didn’t tell the patient what we were doing, they may be confused and may even not return if any follow up care is needed. So we explain to the patient that we are doing this to help with that.
Secondly, to give the patient instruction for any at home exercise and care they should follow up with
On site treatment is part of the equation for getting patients out of pain. Often to expediate recovery, we will ask the patient to perform exercises and stretches to help the condition normalize. Communicating not only what they should do, but why, will help the patient understand so much more and be more likely to do these exercises.
At Back and Body Medical, we follow a simple three step communication approach towards our patients.
1. We tell the patient what we are going to do with regards treatment.
Telling the patient what we are going to do increases their understanding by 10 – 20%.
2. We will tell our patient what we expect them to do in the way of exercises at home to expedite recovery. We also suggest ways to prevent said injury.
Telling the patient what to do in the way of exercises AND stopping the behavior that caused the pain in the first place increases their understanding by around 40%.
3. We will then ask the patient what they are going to do.
Getting them to repeat back to us what they are going to do (and correcting them if need be) will increase their understanding by 70%.
Communication is key to pain relief. Helping the patient understand by as much as 70% will help them to find relief sooner than later. This is why we always explain to our patients in detail what is going on and how to solve the problem.
If you are in pain and need help, please come in and see us. We will treat you and we will explain to you what your problem is and together we will get you out of pain and fit again.
Call today (212) 371-2000 or schedule online now.
