Welcome back to season 2 of PT Elevated where we are broadening our topics to include more researchers but still focusing on topics that you can use in your clinic every day.

On our third episode of season 2 Chad Cook, PT, PhD, MBA, FAPTA, a professor at Duke University and director for clinical research facilitation joins our hosts Kory Zimney and Paul Mintken discussing outcome measurements and how clinicians can apply them and use them.

Here are some of the highlights:

"You need to know the pros and cons of outcome measures. The pros give us something to measure so we can look at the success of a particular patient population. But the cons are that outcome measures are not bible."

Outcome measures are influenced by many other factors more so than just the treatment. This includes where that person is in their social setting, social risk, social economic status and psychological status going on at that time. The within session variations on how they report, maybe they just had a fight with their spouse or their partner, that will influence how they are going to score an outcome measure.

Outcome measures tools are not as precise as we think they are. You may see a patient filling something out in a way they think they should fill it out that doesn't really reflect their case. It is recommended that we do not use just one single outcome measurement with one single patient to determine success.

Chad Cook Clinical Pearl: "When I graduated, I was told I had the ability to change outcome for every person I treated with my hands, my brain and my interactions. Everybody would be fair game to improve. When I got into the clinic and realized some people don't improve, I took it personally. I thought I was missing something. I went con ed shopping, trying everything that I could. Now I know that some people don't improve because some people aren't ready to improve. We know that through many psychological measures. Some people are in a state of health where you aren't going to see that much success. For new graduates, a recognition that you try your best for every single person but sometimes because of the person's state of health and where they are at. they are not going to improve."

Helpful research and training:

Orthopaedic Certification

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Episode 63 - "I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night"