Telephysio in Practice

Dan McDonald, physiotherapist and founder of Cloud Physio, shares a practical story of how telephysio is helping patients, practitioners and the profession.

Stephanie Brown* woke one morning with severe neck pain. While she had experienced the occasional twinge in her neck previously, this episode was debilitating.

Stephanie was distressed; her husband had gone to work and she was at home with their 8 month old son. She knew she would not be able to book an appointment with her doctor on short notice or even be able to safely drive to the appointment. And sitting in emergency with an 8 month old for hours did not seem possible.

Stephanie knew physiotherapy treatment could help her but again, was not capable of driving to an appointment, especially with her young child.. 

So Stephanie went online and started to search her symptoms. Fortunately, she came across www.cloud.physio and made contact. Within the hour Cloud Physio connected Stephanie with a physio who had a gap in their regular morning schedule.

After describing her symptoms and watching her go through neck ROM via an online consultation it was very clear to the physio that Stephanie had an 'acute wry neck'.

The physio was able to talk Stephanie through her diagnosis and provided advice on what to expect. Together they came up with a practical management strategy and her physio demonstrated the most appropriate exercises. As a follow up the physio sent Stephanie an email with information explaining an 'acute wry neck' and her home exercise program.

Everyday after that initial consultation the physio emailed Stephanie to check on her progress and they had a subsequent video consultation to check her ROM and that she was doing the exercises correctly. By day five Stephanie's symptoms were 95% better. At this point treatment started to focus more on the contributing factors and a long term management plan was put in motion.

Stephanie was immensely relieved after the initial consult to know her diagnosis and prognosis. She was also very happy not to have to travel anywhere in her condition and with her 8 month old son. And she was very satisfied with the level of service provided and the daily care her physio provided. 

Telephysio proved a valuable method of delivering care and one that Stephanie will be recommending to her friends and family. 

For more information on becoming a telephysio service provider with Cloud Physio visit https://www.cloud.physio/.

*Not her real name for privacy reasons.