2min chapter

Physio Edge podcast with David Pope cover image

047. Rotator cuff tendinopathy with Dr Chris Littlewood

Physio Edge podcast with David Pope

CHAPTER

How to Use a Baseline Test to Determine Pain Levels

The patient should be able to make a short-term judgment about whether there's been a significant change. As part of the therapy we you know we ask people to set goals and we use the patient-specific functional scale to help set those goals so that's an outcome measure which asks the patient to detail the functional task that they're having difficulty with, then they rate that on a scale of 0 to 10 but in relation to the actual baseline test I'm relying on the patient to be able to do it themselves.

00:00
Speaker 2
excellent can I just come back to a couple of things there within before we move on to that because that was great but to give us an example of your baseline test like what's a few examples of things that you would consider a
Speaker 1
baseline test my background is very very much grounded in general musculoskeletal so dealing with people for the general population and and what you'll see with the fast fast majority of these people is that they'll simply move their arm to the side they'll reach for something they'll pick up a bag that they'll do a very simple movement to reproduce their problem for the more able people athletes or the people who um and you might need to get people down to do multiple push-ups to load up their shoulder a boxer for example might need to repeatedly thrust a punch it's very much related to what they've described in the history to you so it should be individualized so
Speaker 2
you're looking at so you're mostly so you focus on some of those aggravating factors that they've talked to you about in the history and then you've used you're going okay this is giving us some ideas about what we might use as our baseline test so they've said yeah I get pain when I do a push-up or I get pain when I reach up above my head you know to get something out of the cupboard and you go right oh this is what we're going to use because it's relevant to what the patient does you know that's that's perfect and then do you tend to get a baseline pain score at that level like a VIS or you know a score out of 10 for that particular activity that you can relate it to?
Speaker 1
No I wouldn't do it that stage but that's an interesting point because as part of the the therapy we you know we ask people to set goals and we use the patient-specific functional scale to help set those goals so that's an outcome measure that asks the patient to detail the functional task that they're having difficulty with and then they rate that on a scale of 0 to 10 and then they can see how that changes over time but in relation to the the actual baseline test I'm relying on the patient to be able to make a short-term judgment about whether there's been a significant change.

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