A patient has a shoulder repair. She leaves hospital with a sling, a leaflet and an instruction to arrange physiotherapy.
She waits six weeks because nobody told her when to start. By the time she is seen, her shoulder has stiffened in ways that now require considerably more work to reverse.
The protocol said to begin within a fortnight. Nobody explained it, she did not know to ask, and the delay was entirely avoidable.
1. Obtain the surgeon's protocol first
What was done, what is restricted, what is permitted and at which stages. Rehabilitating without it means guessing about tissue somebody else repaired.
2. Ask the patient when they were told to start
And check it against the protocol. Patients frequently misremember or were never told clearly, and the gap between the two is common.
3. Explain why early movement is usually part of recovery
Patients protect a repaired joint instinctively and assume rest is safest. For many procedures, appropriate early movement is what prevents stiffness.
4. Explain the restrictions precisely
What must not be done, for how long and why. A patient who understands the reason follows a restriction and one given a rule simply becomes cautious about everything.
5. Explain the stages
Protection, restoring movement, restoring strength, functional loading and return to activity. Patients cope far better when they can see the structure of the months ahead.
6. Explain what is normal at each stage
Swelling, stiffness, discomfort and how much of each. Patients without this information interpret normal recovery as something going wrong.
7. Explain what would mean contacting somebody
Specific signs relating to the procedure. A patient with a threshold acts appropriately and one without either panics or ignores something important.
8. Coordinate with the surgical team
Where progress differs from expectations, or something is unclear. A physiotherapist in contact with the surgical team is worth considerably more to a patient.
9. Explain the timescale honestly
Full recovery after many procedures takes months rather than weeks. Patients given an optimistic figure become discouraged at exactly the point persistence matters.
10. Explain the home programme's role
It does most of the work between appointments, which is the ground in exercise prescription questions patients ask.
11. Explain the return to work and driving questions
Which patients need answered practically and which depend on the procedure, the restrictions and what their work involves.
12. Explain the wound and scar considerations
What can be touched, when dressings come off, what a scar needs and when hands on treatment over the area becomes appropriate. Patients are frequently uncertain about touching the site at all and either avoid it entirely or do too much too soon.
13. Explain what happens if progress stalls
Reassessment, a conversation with the surgeon and adjustment. Plateaus are common and patients interpret them as failure.
14. Handle the funding and referral position
Insurance authorisation, referral requirements and what happens if sessions run out mid rehabilitation.
15. Capture the surgical detail at the first contact
An assistant that asks what procedure was done, when, which surgeon, whether a protocol exists and what the patient was told to do gives a clinic what it needs before the first appointment, and takes the booking request at the right point rather than six weeks late. The referral pathway sits in post surgery rehabilitation enquiries and referrals, the group options in class and group rehabilitation questions from patients, and the handling in how to handle sensitive questions in your chatbot. See features, start at try, and the sector view sits under physiotherapy.