THE TOP FIVE CHALLENGES FACED BY PHYSIOTHERAPISTS

In this arti­cle, let us shed some light on the major chal­lenges faced by phys­io­ther­a­pists. Like in any oth­er pro­fes­sion, Phys­io­ther­a­py has its pos­i­tives and neg­a­tives as well. Although the branch is reward­ing, it sure comes with its down­sides. After talk­ing to sev­er­al phys­io­ther­a­pists and inves­ti­gat­ing their every­day work life, the five most sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges that sur­face in the indus­try are as followed.

1. Lack Of Sup­port­ive Tal­ent Avail­able To Physiotherapists:

 

Phys­i­cal ther­a­py as a branch of reha­bil­i­ta­tive health serves an exten­sive range of peo­ple. Due to its need and pop­u­lar­i­ty among var­i­ous sec­tors like pedi­atric, ortho­pe­dic, neu­ro­log­i­cal, sport, etc.,  there is a high demand for help and sup­port need­ed by tal­ent­ed pro­fes­sion­als sub­or­di­nat­ing and assist­ing phys­io­ther­a­pists. Find­ing resource­ful, expe­ri­enced, and skilled assis­tants has become a dif­fi­cult task for phys­io­ther­a­pists. Lack of sup­port­ive tal­ent is one of the biggest chal­lenges faced by phys­io­ther­a­pists. One promis­ing solu­tion is to use dig­i­tal­iza­tion for this pur­pose. Phys­i­cal ther­a­py and exer­cise ther­a­py are now effort­less­ly assist­ed with the help of dig­i­tal devices and tools that can cater as one of the best solu­tions to this prob­lem with form cor­rect­ing soft­ware and stations.

2. Burn Out/​Stress:

 

Like in any oth­er branch of med­i­cine,  phys­io­ther­a­py also can be very stress­ful. Work­ing long hours shifts, deal­ing with patients with trau­mat­ic expe­ri­ences and ill­ness­es, can cause severe stress to phys­io­ther­a­pists. This stress can gen­er­ate feel­ings of burn out and could be very drain­ing men­tal­ly. Find­ing a bal­ance between their pro­fes­sion­al and per­son­al life is some­thing that Phys­io­ther­a­pists should tar­get from the very beginning.

 

 

3. Doc­u­men­ta­tion:

 

The cur­rent health­care leg­is­la­tion requires doc­u­men­ta­tion at every step of the treat­ment until its very end and record­ing every small detail from plan­ning to the end exe­cu­tion. That is not all, as there are changes reg­u­lar­ly in health codes and laws, these doc­u­ments have to be updat­ed, and the whole pro­ce­dure has to be changed. So from health records to reim­burse­ment claims, all have to be record­ed and reg­u­lar­ly main­tained. As the reim­burse­ment claims are tak­en care of by third-par­ty insur­ance com­pa­nies, detailed doc­u­men­ta­tion must be pre­pared and sub­mit­ted to them. These doc­u­ments out­line the rea­sons, caus­es, past treat­ments, every­day details of each patient, and also jus­ti­fy­ing the need to have a phys­i­cal ther­a­py procedure.

 

 

4. Emo­tion­al Stress:

 

Phys­io­ther­a­pists work very close­ly with patients. They not only help in their phys­i­cal ther­a­py but also deal with the trau­mat­ic expe­ri­ences and sig­nif­i­cance attached to each patient and try to under­stand their cur­rent state of mind. The close and long work­ing hours with the patients can leave phys­io­ther­a­pists emo­tion­al­ly drained. As most of the times, the goal is to achieve inde­pen­dent mobil­i­ty of the patients, push­ing them to acquire the same requires not only phys­i­cal work but a lot of intri­cate emo­tion­al work and moti­va­tion. Phys­io­ther­a­pists should reg­u­lar­ly work on their emo­tion­al health as it is direct­ly linked to their men­tal state as well.

5. Phys­io­ther­a­pists Have To Be Updat­ed With The Trends:

 

As men­tioned before, there are reg­u­lar updates in health laws and codes, so as a phys­io­ther­a­pist, one needs to have infor­ma­tion about all of them, which is a time-con­sum­ing process. Not only this, almost all of the phys­io­ther­a­pists we talked with said they annu­al­ly take at least 2 – 3 cours­es to stay updat­ed about the new tech­nolo­gies, tech­niques, treat­ments, and break­throughs in the indus­try. All these cours­es and class­es cre­ate addi­tion­al costs and also take up a sig­nif­i­cant amount of time. As the indus­try trends are re-eval­u­at­ed often, keep­ing up with all of them is a challenge.

These chal­lenges sur­face from time to time but are man­age­able along the way by tak­ing the right approach, cre­at­ing a bal­ance between per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al life, and man­ag­ing resources and time wise­ly. Also, dig­i­ti­za­tion comes along with a lot of ben­e­fits for the phys­io­ther­a­py sector. 

The dig­i­tal Pix­for­mance Con­cept for Move­ment Ther­a­py helps Phys­io­ther­a­pists to relieve their ther­a­pists, and to gain more time for each patient ses­sion. Get a free con­sul­ta­tion now. 

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