Dr. Google vs Physiotherapist

Hands up if you’ve had an unknown injury or pain that you tried to diagnose and treat via Dr. Google.

Here’s why seeking an assessment with a physiotherapist is the best idea if you are looking for answers.

A physiotherapist will do a full assessment in order to tailor a treatment plan based on their clinical findings. In order to do so, a physiotherapist will begin with a subjective approach asking questions like: What does the pain feel like? How long have you experienced the pain? How does it affect your daily life (sleep, work, activities)? What makes it feel better/worse? What movements cause you the most discomfort? After the subjective assessment comes the objective assessment. At this stage, they will take a closer look at your joint range of motion, strength, flexibility, posture, etc and come up with a diagnosis.

Google is great for paying attention to keywords, which will allow the search engine to produce facts. However, it does not have the ability to ask you questions, or use clinical reasoning to help produce a diagnosis and treatment plan. Pain can be affected by a number of factors; emotional, physical, cognitive, lifestyle habits, social, and other diseases or conditions that a person may have. And as we know, every body is different and everyone experiences pain differently.

Searching “what does it mean if my lower back is aching?” could produce a scary diagnosis like: cancer, herniated disc, nerve damage, etc. If a physiotherapist were to assess you, they would take a look at your spine, hip joints, walking patterns, knee joints, ankles, neck, job factor, sleep patterns, pain patterns, underlying health conditions, etc. From there, a diagnosis may be as simple as hip weakness.

When you make an appointment at Kneaded Care, you can be sure that your physiotherapist will be very thorough in their assessment using facts, research, subjective and objective information from you, to help come up with a diagnosis and treatment plan tailored for you.