Most people seek physiotherapy treatment because of pain. Pain being an unpleasant sensation having both a physical and an emotional impact.

Yet despite the fact that most people have the same complaint (pain), everyone’s experience is unique and everyone’s reason for walking through the clinic door is different.

This is why, as physiotherapists, we place so much importance on what we refer to as question 1 for the patient:

“As far as YOU are concerned, what is YOUR main issue?”

This allows a dialogue to take place that helps us really understand the patients problem and how this is affecting them.

The following are all real examples and highlight how differently the symptom of pain might affect people:

• “My knee hurts and I can’t run as much as I want to.”
• “My shoulder pain is affecting my ability to plaster. I’m self-employed with a family to care for. I cannot be off work like the GP suggested.”
• “I think I’ve got cancer.”
• “My wife has sent me.”
• “I can’t walk as far as my husband, and if we can’t go walking together I’m worried we’ll end up divorced as it’s our most common interest.”
• “I’ve just got a bit of a niggle I’d like you to check before race day.”

Here is another example of how physiotherapy effectively diagnoses and treats the causes of pain, where we delve into the case of a 15 year old girl who had been suffering with a headache for seven months:

When she arrived and told her story, it was clear she had come for physiotherapy because she had nowhere else to turn, and was at her wits end!

She had been under the care of her GP and a neurology consultant and had undergone extensive tests. Blood tests, a CT scan, an MRI and an ophthalmology check had all been clear. Migraine medication and painkillers had been tried with no beneficial effect.

Physiotherapy found the cause of her pain and treatment was successful:

Our examination revealed stiffness in the joints at the junction where the head meets the neck - a common source of headaches. Some of the muscles in her neck had also become tight, while others had become weak.

Hands-on treatment from Blizard’s Matthew Newton and Caroline Hennigan corrected these problems, and the improvement in her symptoms was huge.

Physiotherapy healed not only her pain but allowed the girl to return to normal life:

Only on getting better could this young girl and her mum really appreciate how the pain had affected her. The girl’s personality is back to normal, she is less withdrawn, much more herself, her sense of humour has returned and her school work has improved - just in time for her GCSEs!