Trust: Investing part 4
“Do you trust me?” - Aladdin
Whether it’s a used car salesman, a financial planner, or the doctor recommending surgery, the underlying question is the same, “Do you trust me?”. Do you trust the car salesman is giving you a fair price and not a lemon? Do you trust the financial planner will grow your money more than if you managed it independently? Do you trust the surgeon ‘s recommendation is truly the best course of action for your future health and wellbeing? This question is essential when partnering with a professional to invest in your future. After all, your future is at stake. At Dotson Physiotherapy, we recognize that building trust takes time, and should be a process. Below are highlighted three phases during which we help bolster your trust in not only us, but yourself as well.
The first is our free Health & Goals Strategy Session. During this 30-minute phone conversation we not only obtain a complete medical history and understanding of what you want changed, but also seek to understand your “Why” (see Investing Part 3), possible barriers to reaching your goals (see Investing Part 2), and priorities in selecting a healthcare provider (cost, convenience, and quality). If, after this conversation, Dotson Physiotherapy does not seem to be the best fit for your unique needs and priorities, we will do our best to direct you to another local provider who is a better match.
The second phase of building trust is during the evaluation. Following our free 30-minute Health & Goals Strategy Session our clients receive an in-depth 1-2 hour evaluation by a doctor of physical therapy. During this head-to-toe physical examination, we provide a detailed explanation of our findings and how these are likely connected to the pain or movement dysfunction you are wanting addressed. However, the detailed examination and explanation is not the most potent way we build trust during your initial evaluation. Years of post-doctorate education and mentoring has helped me develop a rather eclectic skillset. By combining multiple perspectives, for lack of a better word, I expect you to experience immediate, and often mind-boggling, results during your first session working with me. For example, using the Facilitation Patterns perspective (more on this in the future), I can often predict several areas of tenderness and muscle weakness. After explaining your presentation, I will manually re-position parts of your body to reduce irritation of the involved nerves, alleviating your tenderness and allowing your target muscles to again show their strength. I will then explain how your home exercise program will help your body remodel in such a way that the irritation and weakness is cleared on your own and, over time, will not come back. Or, using the Fascial Distortion Method perspective I will have you move in a way that causes pain or discomfort and explain/show what you feel. Based on your history, physical examination findings, and how you described/showed your symptoms, I will then perform a brief treatment and have you repeat the movement. With this approach patients typically see 40-100% reduction of symptoms. By adding immediate results from these two perspectives to my extensive post-doctorate training in musculoskeletal examination, I expect to earn your trust before your first session is even over. Now, while one treatment is enough for complete recovery in some cases, long-term changes take time.
At Dotson Physiotherapy, we expect you to experience significant and sustained improvement (as you measure it) within four sessions. This expectation assumes we have done our job in adequately helping you understand what your home program is, how to engage with it appropriately, and why each and every part is important in moving towards your goals. It also assumes you have adequately worked with us to eliminate or reduce your barriers, understand and leverage your why, and appropriately space out your initial four sessions. The most important part of this early phase is building your trust in yourself. With every session we strive to elevate your understanding of your body and how it predictably responds to various “stresses on the system.” As you gain the ability to predict how your body will respond and reduce your symptoms independently, you will begin to trust yourself more. And, as is the focus of this series, as your trust in yourself grows and yields results, your willingness to invest in your future will grow as well.
Now, our hope with this blog series is to inspire you to take action and invest in yourself more - we believe you are worth it. If it’s your health and wellness you choose to focus on, we hope you’ll let us partner with you in that by scheduling a free phone consult. Regardless, our true hope and belief is that individuals investing in themselves inspire others to do likewise. As such, the true hope and vision of Dotson Physiotherapy is that this series will serve as a catalyst to a better future for you and your whole community.