One of my first new patients on a musculoskeletal prac was a 60ish year old lady with OA. I asked the usual initial questions and gave her an opportunity to speak without interruption. She spoke for a good couple of minutes about her condition however she didn’t give me specifics that I required for the assessment form. I then asked her more specific questions about her the problems she was having. Even with closed questions I was finding it difficult to control how much the she was talking. This continued for the whole subjective exam and resulted in me having much less time for the objective exam and treatment.
I felt like I would come across as rude if I interrupted her and asked a different question. However, I think it comes down to how you interrupt the patient and redirect their thoughts. I would feel comfortable for a therapist to interrupt me if they showed me that they were listening and were interested in what I had to say. Maybe I didn’t interrupt her because I didn’t know what words to say to get this across?
Following this experience I did make an effort to try and interrupt patients if they were rambling. I’m still not very good at doing it, but I found that seeing patients was more rewarding when I was able to be more efficient with the subjective exam and give more time to treatment.
Does anyone have any techniques they like to use on patients that like to talk?
1 comment:
It is a difficult situation, you dont want to be rude but you also want to be able to do your job efficiently.
From experience I find that I bring them back on track by repeating the original question about their pain or whatever you were asking. The key is to gauge a break in the conversation, sometimes its hard and if it is then by clearly interrupting them it brings them back onto the topic at hand. It is rude but sometimes theres no other option. Key word is: So... about that pain you were talking about.
If theres a break in the conversation take the opportunity to ask the question again.
Will the elderly you can get away with it as they are easily distracted.
hope that gives you a bit of insight. We are such friendly people that pts are happy to chat to us about their entire lifestory!
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