Education benefits your patients, your practice, and yourself. Patient education and continuing education for you are both vitally important to the success of your practice.
Simplicity is the key to patient education. The general public is not very well educated about chiropractic, and it is up to you to help your patients understand how chiropractic care can benefit them. It’s also important to explain to your patients how chiropractic care can help them get back to the activities they enjoy.
I have found that the best way to educate patients about their problems is to have them “see if, feel it, and rate it.” For example, let’s say that your patient, Mary, has neck pain. If you have Mary do range of motion (ROM) exercises in front of a mirror, she can see for herself how the problem limits her movements. When you do deep palpitation over a tender spot in her neck, Mary will feel where the pain is located. Finally, you should have Mary rate her pain on a scale of 1 to 10. As a doctor of chiropractic, you will, of course, do all of the appropriate tests to thoroughly evaluate Mary’s condition.
Having patients see, feel, and rate their pain during each visit will help you monitor their improvements. Patients will see their range of motion improve, feel less pain with palpitation, and realize that their pain ratings are getting lower. This will remind your patients of the progress they have made and help them stay committed to their program of care.
Continuing your education and keeping your skills up-to-date makes it possible to educate and care for your patients more effectively. For over 50 years, Foot Levelers has sponsored the top educators in chiropractic to present seminars across the United States. These seminars offer practical information which chiropractors can put to immediate use in their practices. Covering topics such as chiropractic rehab, caring for special populations, extremity adjusting, and insurance regulations, Foot Levelers’ seminars are designed to improve your adjusting techniques, build your practice, and enhance your care.
Education is an investment that will pay off through a more successful practice and healthier patients.
As the Associate Director of Education and Research for Foot Levelers, Dr. Brian Jensen shares more than 20 years of practice experience in chiropractic colleges and seminars around the world. Understanding how structural imbalances led to his own sports related injuries-many of which could have been avoided with proper evaluation and intervention-galvanized his interest in these concepts.
