Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Necessary Details In Patient Handouts

By Mary Gibson


Physical exercise is important in promoting recovery from some types of illness. The doctor may thus recommend a list of physical exercises, commonly termed as physical therapy to promote the recovery. The recovery plan is then printed out in Patient Handouts to help guide them in carrying out the activities. A common guide used is the Home Exercise Program (HEP). Details on how to write the plan is include herein.

For the handout to work appropriately, details and accuracy are highly considered. The content of the document will thus aim to provide complete, detailed and accurate procedures to help guide the user. For instance, the handout will ensure that it explains the procedure of carrying out an exercise in details by including the time it should take, how many times to repeat it and the position to do it.

The flow of information is also important in the guide. To achieve this, the details should be well organized and follow a particular sequence based on the recommendations provided by the doctor. For every exercise included in the plan, the step by step procedure of properly carrying out the various exercise positions is also included.

For some people, there are some procedures written in texts that may be difficult to comprehend. The writer of the handout should thus note these procedures and include a diagram or picture to help ease understanding of the procedure. The diagrams will help supplement the information that is contained in the text thus promoting its understanding.

In writing the plans, there are some factors that need to be considered regarding the text. Some of the factors include keeping the font clear and legible and ensure the minimum font size used is 12. This helps avoid misinterpretation due to poorly written words that affect the procedure taken by the patients in carrying out the physical therapy.

Regarding language, the content explained should be in a manner that is easy to understand even for a child. This ensures that any person can easily read and understand the document. While writing the document, ensure that an informal writing style is used to help patients feel as if you are talking to them personally.

In most cases, some patients will fail to fully complete their physical therapy if the exercises involved are too hard and complex to carry out. Often this is due to discouragement after repeatedly failing or getting tired from the exercises. The writer of the plan should thus ensure that the exercises that the person is expected to do are simple and light to encourage patients to complete the therapy.

However detailed and comprehensive the handout, the doctor will still have to give a brief or detailed verbal account of what the physical therapy will involve. This is necessary as it increases the patients understanding of the treatment plan as well as offer an opportunity for the doctor to encourage the patients to complete the therapy. For those who are about to create handouts, take every detail into consideration.




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