Assessment and Diagnosis of Knee Injuries Presentations The value of an experienced physiotherapist

摘要

A range of titles now reflects emerging roles in physiotherapy: clinical specialists, extended scope practitioners, and more recently consultant therapists. While each role is essentially different, what people in these roles have in common is experience. There is a move to cut down patient waiting times both for operations and for orthopaedic consultant outpatient appointments. An experienced physiotherapist with additional skills would help achieve a reduction in patient waiting times, being able to triage patients for either conservative treatment or a consultant appointment. This study investigates physiotherapists' diagnostic accuracy of acute knee injuries and answers the question: ‘Can a physiotherapist manage the diagnosis of patients presenting with an acute knee injury safely and effectively?’This is a prospective study investigating the agreement between physiotherapists' clinical diagnoses and arthroscopic diagnosis of the knee. Fifty consecutive new patients referred to one consultant's acute knee clinic were recruited into the study. Assessment was by a consultant knee surgeon and two experienced physiotherapists in random order. An initial diagnosis was then made. This was compared to final diagnosis, which was mainly based on arthroscopic findings and special investigations. The results show that experienced physiotherapists are able to diagnose acute knee injuries with a high rate of accuracy, sensitivity and specificity.