Why is my Physio treating my neck pain with mobilisations?
Why isn’t my Physio using ultrasound for my back pain?
Back in the day it used to be enough to decide on treatment techniques based on individual practitioner experience. In more recent times there has been a huge change in the way physiotherapists and other medical practitioners choose the right type of treatments for their patients. This change has resulted in the use of Evidence Based Practice.
Evidence Based Practice involves a move away from choosing treatments based solely on tradition and personal experience. It involves questioning why we use different treatments and looking at scientific studies to see which are most effective for your condition. It is basically the opposite of ‘folk lore’, ‘tradition’ and the age old adage of ‘ we do it this way because this is the way it has always been done’.
Here at Bend + Mend we use an ‘Evidence Based Practice’ treatment philosophy.
This means whenever possible we use treatment techniques that have been proven through scientific study to be successful in treating your condition.
So where does experience come in? Experience definitely still plays a very important role in your treatment. Even the right techniques in inexperienced hands will be less effective. It is also important to realise that there are limitations to scientific studies. Nuances in patient presentations and treatment techniques are hard to account for in rigorous scientific studies and this is where practitioner experience combined with best possible research is the key.
For the Physio’s here at Bend + Mend, Evidence Based Practice means a commitment to the reviewing of physiotherapy studies, reading of literature and ongoing professional education.
For you it means you can be confident we are using the most effective treatments we have available to treat your problem.
Keep an eye on our Physio Q&A topics for updates on what treatments have been found to be effective for your problem areas.
