RUNNING HEAD: PROFESSIONAL WRITING IN THE PHYSICAL THERAPY FIELD

Professional Writing in the Physical Therapy Field Zachary Gordon Northeastern University

PROFESSIONAL WRITING IN THE PHYSICAL THERAPY FIELD

Professional Writing in the Physical Therapy Field In order to achieve effective patient treatment and succeed in improving outcomes, it goes without saying that communication and physical therapy must work hand in hand. It is almost surprising to note how many forms of communication and how many people involved must communicate correctly in order for optimal patient care. In a typical outpatient visit, for example, a patient will enter, talk to a front desk assistant or receptionist in charge of monetary handlings, scheduling, and insurance. Throughout the duration of their visit, they will communicate with their therapist about their pain level, exacerbations/remissions of symptoms and progress throughout the visit. Furthermore, they can communicate with aides about proper exercise techniques and at home routines, as well as normal socializing with those involved. Although this seems extensive, it is worth noting that this is only from a patients perspective, which is miniscule compared to how a therapist must use communication. Besides dealing with the patient in the ways described above, they must communicate effectively with other therapists, aides, other co-workers, other health care professionals, insurance companies, and medical companies, just to name a few. While this shows that a skilled therapist is also a skilled communicator, a large majority of this communication is done verbally, and it comes as no surprise that written communication is often overlooked in the physical therapy community. Aside from patient progress reports, chart notes, emails, and insurance handlings (which are done with a large amount of medical jargon and can often be informal), the only real display of written prowess comes from the fraction of therapists willing to take the time to do research and appear in a medical journal.

PROFESSIONAL WRITING IN THE PHYSICAL THERAPY FIELD

This is significant in two ways. The first being that research articles are the primary way to validate evidence-based practice and establish new therapeutic techniques, two critical principles for a therapist to be as effective as they can be. Secondly, this type of report constitutes a large portion of the relevant information out there for a physical therapist. Whereas sites such as WebMD and Wikipedia provide the general public with a brief overview of medical knowledge, the skilled physical therapist must delve deeper than these pages laden with simplicity and laymans terms. For example, from a previous assignment, a Google search was conducted for information on "Physical Therapy and Type 1 Diabetes". In the results there are a number of articles with overlapping information directed toward the public, but it is the one research article, done by Diabetes Care, a medical journal, which the physical therapist will go to for information on the subject. It is this article which will be the subject for analysis. Entitled "Physical Therapy/Exercise in Diabetes", this was an article published in the aforementioned Diabetes Care, a journal of the American Diabetes Association (ADA), in the January 2004 issue. Although not necessarily written by a physical therapist, this article poses great importance to the therapy community. As a medical journal, backed by the ADA and directed toward medical professionals, that "is intended to increase knowledge, stimulate research, and promote better management of people with diabetes," (ADA, 2013), Diabetes Care is a reputable source for all disciplines when dealing with the topic on diabetes. This article is a prime example, as a reference guide for all therapists seeking better information on proper ADA guidelines on proper intervention with diabetic patients interested in physical therapy treatment. Upon opening the webpage, the title area appears a bit cluttered. There appears to be large text underneath the title of the article with keywords, which if one had searched for on the website, this article might have appeared in the search. While important, there is no need for the

PROFESSIONAL WRITING IN THE PHYSICAL THERAPY FIELD

space to be taken up by this. Furthermore, along the side of the first page of the article, there are numerous links to help the reader proceed with this article, from viewing the full text as it would appear in the journal, to sharing the article in an email or social media, to websites allowing the reader to cite the article in a document of their own. Although this clutter takes up much space, it does not cause much of a disturbance as these links are helpful and they vanish up the page, revealing a clean layout, as the reader scrolls through the entirety of the article. The article is organized into eight sections: Introduction, Evaluation of the Patient, Preparing for Exercise, Exercise in Type 1 Diabetes, Exercise in Type 2 Diabetes, Exercise in the Elderly, and Conclusions, with various sub sections in each. This organization is extremely helpful to the reader, seeing as how this is a fairly lengthy article with copious amounts of information in each section. The word choice, terminology, and amount of information presented is incredibly impressive. It appears that this article is efficiently tailored to its audience of physical therapists, using an appropriate amount of medical terminology where needed, however not going too overboard that the article loses its resemblance to a piece of writing and starts becoming a medical note. Such proficiency is demonstrated in the description of cardiovascular disease prevention. "...risk factor for coronary disease, concomitant hypertension, hyperinsulenemia, central obesity, and metabolic abnormalities of hypertriglycerinemia, low/altered HDL and elevated FFA." (Diabetes Care, 2004). The author is assuming an educated medical background by mentioning these impairments and abbreviations without going into detail explaining what they are or how they relate. As previously stated, each section provides an extremely large chunk of information for the reader to process. However, this bulk that the article has is necessary. As with any medical procedure, there are several precautions, contraindications and strict protocol to executing patient

PROFESSIONAL WRITING IN THE PHYSICAL THERAPY FIELD

care, in this case, treating those with diabetes. The author does a great job of detailing these explicitly, which is obviously imperative for any medical professional to understand. For example, in the "Evaluation of Patient Before Exercise" section, the author breaks down the information into sub-headings, providing paragraphs on proper cardiovascular, arteriole, retinal, renal, and both peripheral and autonomic screens, normal responses to these screens, and yellow/red flags. It appears to be the author's goal that the readers of this article not just become educated in this type of care, but to become experts in this information, which is an often overlooked aspect of physical therapy writing. Articles such as this one are very encouraging to the physical therapy field. As stated earlier, the amount of published, written, and (most importantly) useful information available to the physical therapist can be scarce at times, and from previous experience, these articles can often be filled with bulk and fillers. One might even think since this disparity exists, there might be low standards for writing in the field and getting published. While this is not necessarily true, it is nonetheless worth lauding the authors for providing a rare piece of work that provides the reader with a large amount of information that is all both useful and critical to understand. Since communication plays such a vital role in the physical therapy field, I believe a goal of the physical therapy community should be to improve on both the quality and quantity of written, relevant work in the field. It is encouraging to see that more and more research is being supported and is on the rise, however there are many that still place this as a low priority. It is essential that we, as future health care professionals, advocate for the importance of improving these skills. While they can only be improved with time and practice, the fact that the articles used for this practice will still be useful to the physical therapy community is a great prospect and hopefully can be acted upon in the near future.

PROFESSIONAL WRITING IN THE PHYSICAL THERAPY FIELD

References "Physical Therapy/Exercise and Diabetes". Diabetes Care. January 2004; Vol. 27: S34S62. American Diabetes Association. "About Diabetes Care". http://care.diabetesjournals.org/site/misc/about.xhtml. September 2013. Accessed September 26, 2013. Google Search. "Physical Therapy and Type 1 Diabetes". https://www.google.com/#q=physical+therapy+and+type+1+diabetes. Accessed September 22, 2013.