Clinical Reasoning for Manual Therapists

A practical text covering the theory and the practice of clinical reasoning skills for all physical therapists. Provides readers with activities to improve their own clinical reasoning within their own clinical setting. With a range of very high-caliber international contributors in the field of physiotherapy practice, this book gives the answers to the practitioner's question of how does one apply the theoretical knowledge involved in clinical reasoning to practice and how can one become a better practitioner as a result.

Introduction

Section 1: Principles of clinical reasoning in manual therapy

1. Introduction to clinical reasoning

Section 2: Clinical reasoning in action: case studies from expert manual therapists

2. Back and bilateral leg pain in a 63 year old woman
3. Ongoing low back, leg and thorax troubles, with tennis elbow and headache
4. Chronic low back pain over 13 years
5. Unnecessary fear avoidance and physical incapacity in a 55 year old housewife
6. A chronic case of mechanic's elbow
7. Chronic low back and coccygeal pain
8. Ankle sprain in a 14 year old girl
9. Headache in a mature athlete
10. Thoracic pain limiting a patient's secretarial work and sport
11. Bilateral shoulder pain in a 16 year old long-distance swimmer
12. Medial collateral ligament repair in a professional ice hockey player
13. Patellofemoral pain in a professional tennis player
14. Self-management guided by directional preference and centralization in a patient with low back and leg pain
15. Craniovertebral dysfunction following a motor vehicle accident
16.A judge's fractured radius with metal fixation following an accident
17. A university student with chronic facial pain
18. Adolescent hip pain
19. A software programmer and sportsman with low back pain and sciatica
20.An elderly woman 'trapped within her own home' by groin pain
21. Chronic peripartum pelvic pain
22. Acute on chronic low back pain
23. A non-musculoskeletal disorder masquerading as a musculoskeletal disorder
24. Forearm pain preventing leisure activities

Section 3: Theroy and development

25. Educational theory and principles related to learning clinical reasoning
26. Improving clinical reasoning in manual therapy

Appendix 1: Reflective diary

Appendix 2: Self-reflection worksheet

Index