What is Online Physio?
Online Physiotherapy is known by a few names such as virtual physio or even telephysio. Put simply this is Physio done via video over the internet, skype and facetime are examples of this.
Why we offer online physio?
At Hawkes Physiotherapy we are always evolving and improving what we do and with the Coronavirus pandemic this has made people and Physio’s think more about offering remote consultations via the internet and even the phone.
What does online physio involve?
Like a normal face to face consultation, you would make a booking for a date and time. At the time of your online physio appointment, you will get a phone call first and then access the easiest form of online video chat for you. Skype or Facetime work great for this. We then go through the physiotherapy assessment as we would in the clinic. This involves questions about you and the problem that you have. After this, we will get you to go through some movements and we will see how you manage this. At this point, we will have a good understanding of your diagnosis and we can give you information and advice as well as prescribe the correct exercises for you. Here at Hawkes Physiotherapy, we have a massive comprehensive physio exercise database, and this is where you will be able to watch your exercises being demonstrated to follow at home. We will arrange a follow up online appointment to see how you are progressing and check your exercises etc.
How can online physio help me?
Some people can’t get to our clinics or live far away and although we do home visits this is not always ideal. Contrary to popular belief online physiotherapy can be very effective and it can help the same injuries that face to face physio can help. I have helped many people with injuries such as disc prolapses, tennis elbow, neck pain and much more.
How effective is online physio?
You may not realise this but most of the diagnosis that we make as physiotherapists is made by just the subjective questions, rather than the objective testing. The beauty of video is that we can also assess you objectively quite well too. The only downside is that we can’t perform manual therapy and other treatments to you as we would in our clinics but evidence supports exercise and advice massively. For example, in a study by Richardson et al (2017), they found that Telerehabilitation assessment of the knee complex appeared to be feasible and reliable and is, therefore, a good option.
and…
A systematic review done by Cottrell et al (2017) found that online consultations were comparable to face to face consultations for pain & function.
So, if you need physio but can’t get to us then we have got you covered with online physiotherapy. You don’t even need to be local to the Stoke-on-Trent area as this service can be offered to technically anyone anywhere. We have had great feedback on our online physiotherapy sessions, check out a patients review below:
If you need any further information or would like to book an appointment then call Hawkes Physiotherapy on 01782 771861 or 07866 195914.
DISCLAIMER:
The content in this blog article is provided for general information purposes only and is not meant to replace a physiotherapy or medical consultation.
