A quick quiz... What do these outcomes measures have in common? The Step Activity Monitor (SAM) Barrow Neurological Institute (BNI) Fatigue Scale The Postural Assessment Scale for Stroke (PASS) And the Hierarchical Assessment of Balance and Mobility (HABAM) Yes, they do all suffer from the same urge to give every outcomes measure an acronyms. (Although it has to be said that the people who invented the Physiotherapy Functional Mobility Profile Questionnaire (PFMP-Q), had no desire to give their outcome measure a memorable name or acronym). But that's not the right answer. The answer is that they are all outcome measures developed in the last 20 years that are widely … [Read more...] about Interesting outcome
Wither ‘Quality of Life’?
This post from our CPN Exec member Barbara Gibson just appeared on The AMS Phoenix Project site (link) and is cross-posted here. I recently attended my first AMS Phoenix Project Conference as a new grant recipient. It was a treat to be amongst a talented group of people who are collectively dedicated to infusing compassionate care into healthcare, and who are doing so from diverse perspectives. As someone who identifies as a critical researcher I was especially intrigued by some of the comments provided by speaker Arno Kumagai related to the problem of evaluating compassion. Dr Kumagai mentioned a somewhat disturbing trend in healthcare towards measuring compassionate care utilizing … [Read more...] about Wither ‘Quality of Life’?
More on the measurement of pain
Neil Maltby's excellent blogpost yesterday (Algorithm is going to get you) was a refreshing reminder of some of the odd things we do in the name of science-based physiotherapy. Neil's post was about how we look for pseudo-scientific measurement of things that otherwise can't (and shouldn't) be measured. I've blogged about this before (see here, for example), and complained bitterly about our lack of sophistication when it comes to subjective phenomena like breathlessness, pain, loss (of functional ability), etc., that are the bread-and-butter of everyday life for working physiotherapists. No-one ever wakes up in the morning with a bad headache and says "Wow, I've got a really bad … [Read more...] about More on the measurement of pain