How Much Can a Positive Attitude Help with PT?
Last fall, while I hosted a college sports radio show, one of the stories that struck me the most was that of Eric LeGrand, a Rutgers football player who was paralyzed after a tackle. In the six months since he was paralyzed below the neck (he fractured his C3 and C4 vertebrae), Eric has gone from being told he would never breathe on his own to being able to move his arms and shoulders.
His dream is to walk again, and he has stopped listening to his doctors’ predictions, all the while continuing his physical therapy.
I am curious about such “miracle” cases. I am sure that being an athlete in top physical condition before the accident may have helped him, but I also have to wonder about his positive outlook.
Although he admits to having bad days, Eric has set lofty goals for himself, focuses on his future, and surrounds himself with other positive friends and family members.
Have you heard of similar cases where patients far surpassed their doctors’ expectations? How much does pre-accident conditioning aid in recovery? Is a positive attitude crucial to getting better?
As a future PT student, I am interested in hearing about what contributing factors can help make sure that physical therapy is most effective.
Author: Jasmine
3 Comments
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Comments
Jasmine,
I just reviewed an article by Joel Bialosky on my website http://www.physiotherapyinfo.com in which he talks about how “Expectations” are correlated with “Results” in patients with musculoskeletal pain and disorders. Its very fascinating but the gist of the article is that the patient’s expectations of getting better or getting worse will have actual effects on the outcomes of their case. He reviews various literature pointing to this and believes if you can influence a patient that your technique is what they need to get better, they will be more prone to getting better. If you tell a patient, I don’t know if this is going to work or you’re not going to get better, then their outcome may be not be as good as the football player you described in your piece. Expectations can influence results.
Very interesting research. It draws upon a lot of what I learned in college as a psychology major.
Agreed, this also falls in line with a lot of the current research on chronic pain and the powerful interplay between the CNS and corresponding physiologic output systems. The driven patient will undergo a series of physiologic changes that produce a healthy internal environment for recovery (through many underlying mechanisms we still don’t understand). On the flip side can there be such a thing as unrealistic expectations having the reverse effect in the long run??