media misinformation and health

An intersting bit of information has just made its way into the media. Copenhagen University has published a study that suggests the use of certain vitamin supplements actually shorten a person's life. Not the sort of unhealthy thing you'd expect when you buy vitamins. However there's a big problem when it comes to the media reporting health. This is typical of the fromt page hyped up story the media love offering lots of short term interest but lacking in substance or serious discussion. The media are the greatest barrrier to successful health promotion because their cherry-picking approach gives a really distorted view of what constitutes a healthy lifestyle. For years there has been promotion of cutting fat and sugar in the diet but a total failure to address the needs for high calorie intake amongst those who are not doing sedentary jobs. Like I once hear said you cannot expect someone who does heavy manual labor to exist on lettuce, but that's exactly what you'd expect if you belive the unbalanced view in most of the media. Things go from bad to worse with the media's image of healthcare which according to them is provided only by doctors and nurses. Never mind the rest of us without whom modern healthcare would collapse overnight.

violence and physiotherapy

There's a lot in the news about violence to NHS staff and tonight the BBC is running a documentary about it. I wonder if it's something that physiotherapists face very often. Perhaps it's more likely to happen in certain clinical areas? Emergency room (A&E) work carries a much higher risk but it tends not to be some where that physical therapy goes on. Mental health is another high risk area but again not one which attracts much physical therapy at least in the UK. If there's a hunt for violent incidents should we be also including the occasional thump from a confused patient or is there some way of classifying it? Is this all being thrown in together to distort the view? Any sort of threat is horrible. I was threatened by a patient's partner for supposedly making the patient worse but with hindsight it became clear that the patient's decision to seek treatment and the partners' reactions were all part of some complex game they were playing within the relationship. I had innocently stumbled apon this but became the object of the aggression. Not nice.

money down the drain?

The London Olympic Games are going to cost loads more than originally though, the sum of £9 billion being quoted and rising. I want to know who is going to benefit from this money? This sort of investment would be a major boost to the NHS and imagine what this sort of money could achieve if put into healthcare research. After it's over all that will be left is a massive area of sports facilities in London which will be of no use to the rest of the UK. All this talk of concern about the environment is rubbish because building the Olympic village will have been achieved at significant environmenal cost both in terms of the materials used, the impact of transporting those materials and the resultant travel required to host the event. Food for thought. In the long run it will be interesting to see if the land being used will be sold off for domestic housing because of the lack of demand for a big sports complex. Will this be a repetition of the poor planning evidenced in the situation with the Millenium Dome?

priorities and physiotherapy research

It said in the news that there's been a switch of funds from research to paying to keep firms going like Rover. This makes me really angry . The UK needs research to support its future. But this is not the full reason I feel angry. 10 years ago I had a passionate interest for physiotherapy reaserch and I went on and did some. However, as time has gone on my interest in research has slowly dwindled away not because I think research is boring or unimportant (I think the opposite on both points) but for another reason. Where I work research is not a priority, and in my appraisals any mention about wanting to do research get treated as a optional extra that I can do myself if I want to but not something which will be supported. Over the years I've become tired of the lack of opportunities and support for an activity which requires significant amounts of one's own time; if I am willing to give up my leisure time for a work related activity why should I have such a struggle in getting it recognised as a priority? The situation at work is also a reflection of the Government short sightedness in cutting research investment to bail out failing businesses. The NHS these days only seems to be concerned about counting costs and has lost sight of long term priorities. It lives for the next financial year and short term local political objectives. Politicians only want to talk about the immediate, the here and now. I think this is a threat to the future of physiotherapy because with so much of physical therapy needing better proof that it works, in the future politicians might justify cuttting physiotherapy services because there is no proof that do what they think they do.

motivation and physiotherapy

One of the major things which is a factor in a patient's recovery is a deep rooted ability to motivate themself. What I am talking about here is the fact that some patients seem to lack the ability to aim towards a goal and then keep going until they have achieved it. Presumably all patients have some motivation to get over a health problem otherwise they would not have comsulted in the first place. What some seem to lack despite encouragement, explanation and persuasion is the ability to help themselves. This will be associated with an endless number of barriers and excuses as to why they cannot make the necessary changes which will help their health improve. The bottom line is that they have an outlook which is very similar to a young child who on the one hand wants something but lack the emotional maturity to understand the requiremets on themself to gain what they desire. For these emotionally immature individuals the greatest attraction in physical therapy is the "passive quick fix" where all they have to do is lie there and the clinician will solve the problem but rarely are they able to become an active paticipant because this would require them to accept responsibility for the health problem rather than blaming it on someone or something else.

patients and their problems

Over the years I've seen load of patients who have problems with clicky joints and there seems to be a widespread anxiety that clicking indicates some other form of serious pathology. As a rule I'd say clicking falls into a number of groups, "benign" intermittent clicking caused ,we are told, by gas formation. This is the sort of click when your knees pop getting up. There's the benign muscle click, which is usually a different sound and feels different on palpation, again unually harmless. But there are some "pathological" clicks. There is the click arising from torn "cartilage" structure as in knee meniscal tear, a labral tear in shoulder or hip. Then there is the click arising from a muscle tear as in rotator cuff. A final one is the click from damaged or altered joint surface as in OA or RA. In addition to these there can also be clicks associated with fractures as the result of high velocity injury. So why have I put this in the blog? Last week there was a BBC programme which showed someone asking a doctor about the problem. In the last few days a queation appeared on an internet questions site which I regulary visit. The answers to the internet questioner reminded me about the general level of ignorance about this.

patients and their problems

Over the years I've seen load of patients who have problems with clicky joints and there seems to be a widespread anxiety that clicking indicates some other form of serious pathology. As a rule I'd say clicking falls into a number of groups, "benign" intermittent clicking caused ,we are told, by gas formation. This is the sort of click when your knees pop getting up. There's the benign muscle click, which is usually a different sound and feels different on palpation, again unually harmless. But there are some "pathological" clicks. There is the click arising from torn "cartilage" structure as in knee meniscal tear, a labral tear in shoulder or hip. Then there is the click arising from a muscle tear as in rotator cuff. A final one is the click from damaged or altered joint surface as in OA or RA. In addition to these there can also be clicks associated with fractures as the result of high velocity injury. So why have I put this in the blog? Last week there was a BBC programme which showed someone asking a doctor about the problem. In the last few days a queation appeared on an internet questions site which I regulary visit. The answers to the internet questioner reminded me about the general level of ignorance about this.