Blog #5

During my project so far, I have been surprised by the amount of documentation the job of a physical therapist required. They are always taking notes, typing up how the patient is feeling and their progression through their exercises. When inquiring about what they are actually writing down, I was told that the SOAP acronym is followed for taking notes. The S in this acronym stands for subjective information, which is what the patient tells the physical therapist about how they are feeling due to their injury or condition. The O stands for objective, which is the data that is measured in a session, which could include range of motion measurements. A is for assessment which is an explanation of how the patient is progressing from session to session. And finally, P is for documenting the next steps and plan for future sessions going forward regarding the patient's exercises and physical goals.

I also had the chance to sit in on a few evaluations of new patients in the past few days. Before I had not really known what occurs during these types of evaluations so it was interesting to see how the physical therapists identified the patient's problems and came up with a plan on how to fix them. During these sessions the patient is asked questions about their injury or condition, including how it occurred and their pain levels. Next, the physical therapist will test the strength of the patient in the specific area that they are having issues with. Then, the patient's range of motion is tested through a series of movements specific to the placement of their injury/condition. From here, a plan is made based on where the patient currently has pain and their range of motion, and where they want to get to as a result of the physical therapy.