Two Great Questions to Ask Your Patients

Thought I would take a detour from the usual “research evidence” post and write about something I have found incredibly useful in my clinical practice. I have also made a vague attempt at some humour….

I now regularly utilise key two questions in my assessment and management of patients, and without doubt they have given my clinical practice a major boost. They are questions that a couple of very experienced clinicians once suggested I consider asking my patients.

The first one:

What is your understanding of what is wrong with your (insert injured area)?

Obviously there can be a myriad of answers and “shades of grey” but I generally find that patients fall into three categories:

1. The “Switched On” Patient:

This patient tells you correctly what is wrong with their painful area. This can make treatment really easy when you see that your assessment findings match up to their thoughts. It is however important to communicate to them that they are correct, and also tell them and what they can do about it!

2. The “I don’t know. I am here for you to tell me” patient:

Great patients to deal with. These patients aren’t silly or stupid, they are a blank page.  Make sure you don’t get lazy and think that you don’t have to explain things well to them or else you might create…..

3. The “Mis-informed” patient:

These patients can be tricky as you can hear things like:

My SI (sacroiliac) joint keeps slipping upwards and I must learn to hold my muscles tight to keep in place!

My disc is out and needs to be pushed back in!

My sacral mis-alignment is causing my headaches!

These poor patients have often been incorrectly taken down a path of diagnosis and/or treatment that quite clearly does not match up to what we know is best practice regarding their condition. They also may have fallen prey to:

Pleasingly by asking them “What is your understanding of what is wrong with your (insert injured area)?” we can straight away get an idea of what beliefs we are dealing with and what we may have to challenge/disprove via our assessment and management. This is not always easy, and sometimes can be downright impossible to do, but I personally think that if you do not target these beliefs you will be battling to improve the patient and have them be compliant with your treatment.

The second question I routinely ask at the end of my first session, or certainly by the end of the next session is:

What is your understanding of what is wrong with your (insert injured area)?

No bonus points for seeing that this is the same as the first question!

Asking this question again will demonstrate to you how well you have explained things and how receptive the patient has been to it. If you are running a bit behind time you might not want to ask this at the end of the session!

Would love to hear some of the questions you think are important to ask our patients. I am sure there are plenty. I have a few more that I plan to post about as I think communication and listening are two of the most critical aspects of our clinical practice.

Thanks for reading.