Clinical Assessment and Treatment

Learning Outcomes

Disciplinary Specific Learning Outcomes

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Demonstrate a systematic appropriate physical assessment for patients with simple musculoskeletal, neurological and cardiorespiratory conditions.
• Demonstrate safe and effective physiotherapy management techniques including patient handling, for simple cardiorespiratory, musculoskeletal, neurological case studies.
• Demonstrate effective communication skills as part of the assessment process to gain the relevant physical, psychological, social and cultural information pertinent for the patients’ presentation.

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• Demonstrate an understanding of the principles of human anatomy and physiology in the context of cardiorespiratory, musculoskeletal and neurological assessment related to simple case studies.

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Recognise the ethical and moral dimensions of physiotherapy, including issues related to informed consent including explanation of assessment options, confirming patient understanding and patient choice.
• Explain how information is systematically used to form an initial hypothesis, a problem list, treatment plan and realistic goals in partnership with patients

Effective clinical reasoning skills are fundamental to physiotherapists' clinical practice. This module will introduce students to a model of clinical reasoning to enable novice physiotherapy students to work logically through an assessment process. The process enables them to gather the appropriate and pertinent data and make some sense of it to form a provisional diagnosis, problem list and treatment plan applicable to a patient with a simple neuromusculoskeletal, neurological or cardiorespiratory problem.

The module will include:

• The purpose of assessment in physiotherapy
• Patient interview (subjective) – to include severity, irritability and nature of problems that patients may present with; special medical questions to be asked of patients and the setting of patient centred short-term/long-term treatment goals.
• Physical examination (objective) – either to an individual body part assessment (peripheral - including observation, as well as palpation of specific passive accessory and physiological movements, the concepts of end-feel and joint resistance, and static muscle testing of the upper and lower limbs) or appropriate simple neurological or cardio-respiratory examination

Lectures will be used to introduce the scientific principles and theoretical base of the assessment techniques covered and deliver the key information about clinical reasoning. Case studies will be used to develop the students' ability to analyse the information presented to decide and formulate an appropriate assessment strategy for the case study. Within the sessions small group work, using the case studies as a base, and subsequent plenary discussions and mind mapping will be used to develop the students ability to explore key concepts further.

Lectures and group sessions will be followed by practical sessions to develop competency in the safe and effective use of assessment techniques and manual handling procedures. The practical will include demonstrations and links will be made to clinical scenarios.

Students will be given directed tasks on pathologies related to the cases and guidance to facilitate further self-directed learning. Students will be expected to present such topics for discussion amongst their peers.

E-learning - The unit is supported by Blackboard 6. This can be accessed at http://blackboard.soton.ac.uk . Video streaming demonstrations of neuromusculoskeletal assessment and treatment techniques are available through the blackboard site.

Formative

This is how we’ll give you feedback as you are learning. It is not a formal test or exam.

Objective Structured Clinical Examination

• Assessment Type: Formative
• Feedback: Feedback from peers and staff examiner on the day of the exam. They will each receive a marking sheet on the day.
• Final Assessment: No
• Group Work: Yes

Extended Matching Question (EMQ)

• Assessment Type: Formative
• Feedback: Self-grading of practice paper
• Final Assessment: No
• Group Work: No

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.