Thurday I had a patient that presented with a pretty typical condition, patellofemoral pain post knee surgery. However, he was really tricky to treat because he had just been diagnosed with depression, and treatment had barely begun.
Although I love the fact that physios get to be so friendly with their patients and thats what makes our job so rewarding and enjoyable and its why patients generally love to go to see their physio, it also poses a challenge. I found it very hard to stay focused with this patient, because he just talked so much about how hard everything was and how he just wanted to get back to being active and back to his job as a volunteer life saver. I felt so bad for him, because I think I would feel just like him if I had an injury stopping me from living an active lifestyle. However, the solution for him to get back to everything he wanted to was by listening to me and following my guidelines and he wouldn't do that! I felt like he had excuses for everything and I feel as though I underestimated the challenge of dealing with a patient with depression.
I tried to move him along and focus on what I needed him to focus on but it was really hard! Then when I came back into the room after speaking to my supervisor and I was all ready to go ahead with treatment he 'apparently' injured his knee. I feel horrible saying this but I'm really not sure if he did even hurt it. My supervisor and I didn't think the whole situation really added up and decided to go ahead with treatment and just stop if it all became too much for him. In the end I got through my entrire treatment and he had completely forgotten that he had even hurt it in the first place.
It was really really exhausting trying to work with him but I feel like I made the right desicion in going ahead with treatment because if he did really hurt it I would have stopped straight away. I really think Ben Wand was right when he said not to stress about seeing yellow flags because they will be so obvious you can't miss them. They really were for this patient!
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