Lack of motivation to perform at-home exercises represents a common problem among physical therapy patients. According to a 2013 report by Michigan Technological University (MTU), two very different factors – visual media and stress-reduction – could improve patient compliance with the assignment of exercises to be conducted between appointments.
MTU cognitive science professor Philart Geon and his graduate students found that individuals receiving pain relief therapy often don’t perform “homework” tasks given by practitioners. Common reasons include a busy schedule, confusion over specific expectations, or lack of a sense of forward motion. The study revealed that video typically enhanced a patient’s grasp of the therapist’s instructions, while anxiety was reduced in everyone who completed the at-home tasks.
Basic setup of the study
The research group gathered information from three different populations: physical therapy patients, physical therapists, and college students. The two groups that were directly involved with physical therapy were interviewed to determine the needs of each party and the extent to which they were being met. The college students were used to test possible improvements to materials provided by therapist to patients.
The hypothesis was that better visual media – such as video or high-quality pictures – would raise compliance with therapist instructions.
Discussions with the physical therapy patients and professionals found that video is not commonly used with stretch and exercise instructions. The researchers created various ways to provide instructional materials to almost 5 dozen college students: video alone, video with text, text alone, images with text, and images alone.
After experiencing each of the different pain relief therapy instructional methods, the students completed questionnaires. In this way, the professor and his team checked the students’ stress levels, how pleased they were with the materials, and the likelihood that they would comply with the instructions on their own.
Findings & effective treatment strategies
The group that received their instructions as a combination of video and text were the most pleased with the method. Those participants also scored the highest likelihood to perform the tasks and the lowest degree of stress. Generally speaking, two factors that had a strong correlation among all the students were high compliance with low stress. To summarize, the researchers found that video can be helpful as an instructional method to motivate physical therapy patients; they also found a simple intellectual motivation, that willingness to performing the tasks is itself a stress-reducer.
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