Last week, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) updated its advice on the use of autologous chondrocyte implantation for treating symptomatic articular cartilage defects of the knee (link). Perhaps amid all of the other newsworthy events of last week, this announcement passed you by? In reporting on the announcement, however, the CSP's statement said something interesting. It said; The treatment ... is used to help patients with an articular cartilage defect – or early arthritis in the knee – which tends to affect people in their 20s and 30s, often as result of a sporting injury. But the NICE guidance stresses that surgery should only be considered once … [Read more...] about Physiotherapy as process, not event
New: Openings
Physiotherapists, like all orthodox western health professionals, love endings. Think about it. Every time we begin a new patient assessment, we have got one eye on the patient's discharge. We love goals and outcome measures so that we can measure when milestones have been reached and end-points achieved. It seems every opening to a new episode of care comes with an implicit expiration date. Naturally, funders are eager that packages of care are limited and treatments don't extend on into days, weeks and months, and we seem to have accepted the inherent logic that care must have term limits. Time-limited care suits acute illnesses and injuries that are, by definition, … [Read more...] about New: Openings
Research update – the body, disability, gym, theory, diagnosis and habitus
From the latest edition of Social Science and Medicine, Volume 120 , Pages 1-438, November 2014 The unfinished body: The medical and social reshaping of disabled young bodies Janice McLaughlin & Edmund Coleman-Fountain Medical interventions mark the disabled young body as in need of repair. Such interventions are incorporated into stories of embodied identity. Transitions to adulthood are influential to approaches to fixing the body. Ongoing intervention leaves the body always unfinished and open to remaking. DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.09.012 No time for the gym? Housework and other non-labor market time use patterns are associated with meeting physical activity … [Read more...] about Research update – the body, disability, gym, theory, diagnosis and habitus