Last year in March I got a request for a home visit. As we probably all remember, it was not as easy to do so at this time. But since the patient seemed to be very, very hopeful, for me to help him, I couldn't refuse. The patient who I am talking about is an athletic man, who suffered from an achilles tendon rupture. He got injured during his badminton training. After a surgery, he spent weeks with a leg in plaster. Two days after he got rid of it, the therapy started. With all the measures we had to obey these times we managed him to walk physiologically almost instantly. We did some fascial treatments, of course active training for stabilizing his ankle joints and improving the movement. But for me, one of the most important things I am very focused on, as soon as possible, is the scar. Getting the scar into good shape and in an as physiologically structure as possible is one of the most important things after a surgery. I am emphasizing this cause it unfortunately gets forgotten too often, as a lot of people do not understand the long time consequences of a not properly healed scar.
Anyway... Why was it so wonderful to work with this patient? Of course rehabilitation patients are mostly very thankful patients and also very joyful patients for me as a therapist. The reason for that is, that mostly, of course not always, they WANT to improve. These patients are motivated to do as much as they can to get out the best of the therapy as possible. And that´s what he was. He trained hard, but not too hard for his status quo. He was very agog for his therapy appointments twice a week. He was very openminded for all the techniques I had in petto.
We were a good team, a brilliant alliance. And that is what it is all about. You will never ever have a maximum of an outcome if you don´t match with your patient and vice versa. No matter how good you may are as a therapist, how much education you might have relished, if you don't mesh as a team, it will be hard to reach the best outcome possible. The brilliant side of this is, if you match, you can reach to the top.
Why I talk about this topic is very personal but so important and will be discussed more precisely in an other "food for thought" article some time, as I know that I am not the only therapist thinking about this from time to time. This is one of the lessons I had to learn and I am very thankful for this very special patient to help me to to come this conclusion. That both, the patient and the therapist do have at least equal percent of responsibility for a satisfying outcome of the therapy.