Readings and Musings 8/6/12

Who's driving this thing?!

I get most of my news from twitter and google reader.  I LOVE taking in information from all over and trying to synthesize it into one coherent thought.  I've decided to start gathering these readings, tweeters, and resources on a more regular basis and share with you the things I thought were interesting.  Many will have to do with physical therapy.  Some will definitely not!  You've been warned.  Without further adieu, my first ever "Readings and Musings."   Love to hear your thoughts (if I haven't already).


Appledorn et al. 2012. A Randomized Controlled Trial on the Effectiveness of a Classification-Based System for Subacute and Chronic Low Back Pain  Current treatment based classification schemes do not improve outcomes in patients with subacute or chronic low back pain.

An Essay for Physical Therapists: Lets Move Forward...  An inspiration to move forward, and some issues that are very relevent to physical therapy right now.  There are some great discussion points about manual therapy, and the abuse of modalities.  Comments at the end of the article are worth reading too!

Mannion 2001.  Increase in strength after active therapy in chronic low back pain (CLBP) patients: muscular adaptations and clinical relevance.  Three treatment groups, 1 outcome.  Strength changes through training for chronic low back pain did not appear improve outcomes.

One Word that Defines a Great Brand  Jeff Haden from Inc.com interviews Julia Allison about personal branding.  The interview and picture Julia paints of "personal branding" is organic.  You sell WHO you are, not just what you do.  It's about representing yourself through your values and connecting with clients.  As physical therapists, we seldom ask a patient "may I help you?"  We ask about their kids, grand kids, their dogs, grades at school, favorite sports teams, or the last book they read.  This article couldn't be more relevant to PT. 

Natural Cures?  "What medications are you taking?"  "I don't take any medications."  We might consider asking about supplements in addition, as I suspect (and I don't have a lot of evidence for this that isn't anecdotal, sorry) many patients don't consider the gingko they are taking to help their memory might also impact their balance (dizziness is a known side effect).  AMA strategies for health literacy.

Build Systems Not Overhead  Rhetorical talk about reducing overhead while improving quality.  Just some food for thought, I guess.

The Right Tools for Negotiating Your Salary – Part One: Your Value.   Part of a 3 part (so far?) blog roll about how to negotiate salaries if you're a new PT.  Interesting stat of the evening: this year, 12,738 new PT/PTAs will hit the streets looking for jobs. And we alllll want MONEY MONEY MONEY!  

Homework for the week:  Confirmation Bias and Hindsight Bias

Pure Zen

People to follow:   @JayS_Tan, @MerylKevans, @Jerry_DurhamPT (unless you're a Giants fan).