Physiotherapy

In March 1998, not long after I was diagnosed, I attended a day-long seminar on living with ankylosing spondylitis at the University of Alberta's Health Sciences Centre. (As I was a U of A Ph.D. student at the time, this was fortuitous.) It was run by an occupational therapist and a physiotherapist, and consisted of a pre-seminar physical assessment, discussions, lectures on the disease and on the latest research, and practicing our assigned exercises. Then we were sent on our way and told to keep doing those exercises.

Of course, I did them sporadically at best. When I was feeling good, I didn't feel the need; when I was in pain, I didn't feel able. I'm human.

My rheumatologist, at our first meeting, recommended a course of physiotherapy. The appointment with the physiotherapist came this morning. She asked a number of routine questions. She performed a very brief, almost perfunctory, flexion exam. And, after a brief pause, she came back with a photocopied sheet of exercises, almost every one of which I recognized from my 1998 seminar.

Physiotherapy seems to consist of an intial assessment and a homework assignment. Is that it? I'm a little crestfallen.

I guess this means I should do my homework. I apparently do need to be told twice.