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23
Dec 2022

Why it’s Important to Understand Healing Times

Laurie Edge-Hughes, BScPT, MAnimSt, CAFCI, CCRT

Just some light reading here on the day after Christmas (Boxing Day for those of you who are part of the British Commonwealth).  This is a topic that almost all of us know or take for granted, but this little blog is more along the lines of why you should revisit the concept and why it matters!

 

Let’s dive in!

 

So, the picture pretty much sums up the actual ‘times’ that are quoted in the literature.  Great!  Why do you care?

 

The Soft Tissue Injury Conundrum

•  Often times with muscle, tendon, or ligament injuries, we don’t 100% know what degree / grade of injury is present.  As clinicians, we make our best guess based on tissue reactions, physical examination, degree of pain, and/or mechanism of injury.  It is not practical for all patients with soft tissue injuries to receive diagnostic ultrasound to confirm the degree of injury. So, as practitioners, we make our best guess based on our assessment finding and CLINICAL REASONING.

Check back in on the following blog:

Professional Practice (is between the ears) - https://www.fourleg.com/Blog?b=491  

 

•  What we do have at our disposal is that as trained practitioners with advanced knowledge in tissue healing, we can proceed with a reasonable treatment plan based on the status of the tissue when first evaluation, and THEN progress our treatment plan depending upon the response to our treatments.  Intervention. Assess Response. Re-evaluate Intervention.  Simple.

Check back in on these past blogs:

Reflective Practice - https://www.fourleg.com/Blog?b=493  

Bayesian Clinical Reasoning - https://www.fourleg.com/Blog?b=586  

 

•  So, the soft tissue healing time frames are just guidelines.  We know that tissue healing is VERY Variable, and is impacted by a number of different factors.  (i.e. Compliance with advice, Health-status of the patient, Nutritional factors, etc.)  As practitioners, we need to factor in all variables when it comes to creating our treatment program.

Check out this past blog that dives into this topic:

Myopathies in Medically Challenged Patients - https://www.fourleg.com/Blog?b=473  

 

Let’s move onto other tissues that seems to follow a most straight forward trajectory.

 

Bone Healing

•  This is a bit more straight forward.  The infographic shows a time span of 5-weeks to 3-months.  The main difference between bone healing and soft tissue healing is that the patients with fractures have usually had an x-ray to alert the practitioners involved as to the type of fracture.  A compound fracture takes longer to heal than a hairline fracture.  

Check out this blog about when Medical Diagnoses are helpful:

Do you Need a Medical Diagnosis - https://www.fourleg.com/Blog?b=577  

 

•  We also know that younger patients tend to heal faster than older patients.  We know that a stabilized fracture heals better than an unstable one (with more complex fractures in particular).  We also know that the health status of a patient will also impact healing.  We factor these into our decision making.  

Sorry… doesn’t seem I’ve done much in the way of blogging on fractures!

 

So, let’s wrap up, because you may have other things to do today!

 

All in all, understanding and acknowledging typical healing times is important.  However, so is paying attention to response to treatment and allowing that to guide your progressions as well.

That’s why physiotherapy / physical therapy / rehabilitation is a professional practice and not just a tool kit of modalities and a list of exercises to prescribe!  

 

On that note… I guess, I’ll chat with you again NEXT YEAR!  Happy New Year everyone!

 

Cheers!

Laurie

 



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