Outlines

Evaluations often create the most stress for students. It is easy to feel overwhelmed and nervous as you try to connect with the patient, understand what is bothering them, and determine how you can help them. That is why it is important to have an outline to follow, limiting the material you have to remember. 

1. Introduction and impact

   1. Get to know them

      1. Connecting with the patient is vital for retention

   2. What is going on with ____ ?

   3. How has that impacted you and the things you love to do

2. History

   1. How is this affecting your life?

   2. Have you been to PT before?

   3. Restate and validate

      1. "What I am hearing is: this issue has stopped you from taking care of your kids/doing your job. That sounds really difficult to live with." 

3. Test, Treat, Retest

   1. Identify impairments/objective measures

   2. DO NOT OVERTEST

      1. We want to build buy in, overtesting can increase symptoms and cause patients to associate you with making them worse, rather than helping them

   3. Show them the difference you can make at PT

4. Explain your findings

   1. Use lay terms/vocab the patient can understand

   2. Give them hope without lying, the purpose of an evaluation is to determine if we can help them, within our scope of practice. 

5. Treatment plan agreement

   1. Discuss how you are going to help them get back to what they want to do

      1. Specific exercises to improve functional tasks

      2. Hands on care for X, Y, and Z

      3. Modalities like heat or ice, things in the clinic and how they can do them at home

   2. Health is an investment

      1. It will take effort out of both parties to see the greatest results, if I (the SPT/PT) have to do everything your body will never learn how to improve itself

6. Plan of care

   1. Give the patient 2-3 exercises to do at home following the evaluation. 

      1. Do not give a bunch of exercises, research shows that more than 4 exercises decreases patient compliance

   2. Signature

      1. My first rotation had patient's sign an agreement to PT, this helped to build buy in and gives the patient reassurance that they have a say for how treatment goes

This is a rough outline and there are many more outlines like this on the internet. The best way to build trust with a patient is by being open and showing that you know how to help them. As a student, tell your patient that you and your CI will be working with them to generate the best treatment possible. Once you graduate you may not have someone to ask questions. Use your CI as a resource to learn as much as you can!