Taking the time and care to carefully listen and provide detailed answers to any question or concern you have is something our physiotherapists value greatly. Knowledge is power - and part of our job is to help you understand your diagnosis, why you’re feeling the symptoms you’re feeling, and how your treatment plan is designed to work. Understanding these things creates confidence in what you’re doing and allows you to make the best, informed choices for your health and well-being when you’re not at the clinic.
So, to help you feel fully informed, what questions should you ask at your next physio appointment? Here are the top ten we recommend.
1. What Caused My Pain Or Problem?
There’s a big and important difference between understanding your symptoms and the actual cause (root) of your problem - and you should know both. If you have pain at the back of your heel, for example, understanding your symptoms may look like learning that your Achilles tendon was injured while you were running, and as a result, you’re now getting pain, swelling, and stiffness around your ankle which makes it difficult to perform movements like standing on your toes. The root cause, however, digs deeper - it might include a tight Achilles tendon, flat feet, worn-out running shoes, and an unusually long run that overloaded your tendon.
Knowing the root cause explains why the therapies we recommend, such as stretches, better shoes, and gradual progress during your recovery are crucial—not just for your rehab but to prevent future injuries too. While symptoms help you spot issues to share with your physio, understanding the cause empowers you to take better care of your body and health in the long term.
2. What Is Your Evidence-Based Process For Treating This Problem?
While nothing in medicine can guarantee a certain outcome, and no physio can ever promise that a specific treatment or process will lead to a full recovery, your physio clinic should have a base process for treating specific conditions backed by evidence. So get curious - ask them what it is, discuss the components of the process and how they each contribute to your recovery, and if applicable, how your unique circumstances tie into the process - as each treatment plan should be customised to consider your unique circumstances, assessment findings, your goals, lifestyle and more. Knowing this information can help you feel confident in every part of your treatment and keep you on track.
3. Is It Going To Happen Again?
When asking, ‘is it going to happen again?’, you’re also exploring whether your treatment involves preventative measures to help, where possible, prevent the same problem or injury from recurring again in the future. Here at PhysioCentral, aside from settling your immediate symptoms to get you out of pain and helping repair the damage to get you back to full strength and function, we also look at how we can leave you better than you were before to reduce your risk of future re-injury.
4. How Long Will It Take To Get Better?
The goal of this question is not to get a precise answer about when you’ll be better - because no injury or injury severity is the same, so the recovery time can vary greatly from person to person. Instead, this question aims to be fully informed about the possibilities so you can manage your expectations. If you need to run in an event in 10 days, and you expect quick rehab that will allow you to do it at full strength and function, you will likely be disappointed. If you understand that the average recovery time is 6-10 weeks, you can better manage your expectations. It also means that if you’re getting to the 10-week mark and are not notably better, you can review with your physiotherapist what could be slowing your progress. In the example of the Achilles tendon, many people don’t realise that wearing very flat shoes places significantly more strain on your Achilles than shoes with a slight heel or raise - which may affect their progress.
5. What Can I Expect At Each Physiotherapy Session?
Being injured and unable to move comfortably or do the things we love is frustrating. And if it’s an injury that takes time to heal, it can leave us feeling powerless. Knowing what to expect can help you feel in control - especially when you’ve already discussed how each part of the treatment plan contributes to your recovery (point #2).
6. What Should I Be Doing To Help?
You may be seeing your physio once per week for manual hands-on care, but there will be things you can do every day to help promote your recovery. Your physio can recommend evidence-based home care tips that may help support your recovery.
7. What Should I Be Avoiding?
Just like knowing what you should be doing at home to help, it’s equally important to know what you should avoid doing that may advertently slow your recovery or stall your progress. Your physiotherapist will tell you what to avoid, why, and any alternatives.
8. What Should My Exercise Or Movement Look Like?
One of the most common questions we get asked from clients is whether they can still go to the gym or run while recovering. Our answer varies depending on the type of injury, its severity, and your unique circumstances. So don’t guess - or don’t go by what someone else has been told, as their circumstances may differ from yours, even if it's the same injury. Ask your physio so you know that the exercise or movement you continue to do isn’t harming your recovery progress.
9. Who Else Should I Be Seeing?
We believe that a multidisciplinary approach to health is where the best results occur - which means that we recognise and value the important roles that other health professions like podiatrists, osteopaths, occupational therapists and certified Pilates practitioners (among many others) play in a person's recovery. We will always discuss and refer you if we believe you could benefit from the expertise of another health discipline. If your physio hasn’t discussed any other treatments outside of their services or any referrals, it’s a good idea to ask the question.
10. Will I Fully Recover?
This is another question where the primary goal is to manage expectations. Specifically, where certain conditions may leave ongoing discomfort, but your physio is helping you to reduce the level of discomfort to a manageable level. A common example is knee osteoarthritis - due to the changes and damage to the knee joint, it is impossible to ‘reverse’ or ‘heal’ the effects of osteoarthritis - but it is possible to reduce osteoarthritic knee pain to a level that makes daily living significantly more comfortable.
Need a trusted physiotherapy team grounded in gold-standard treatment principles, trust and care? Book your appointment with our PhysioCentral physiotherapy team using our online booking system, or call us at +852 2801 4801