Ceasing Rx??

I'm on my musculo out-patients prac and i treated a patient 3/52 post elbow dislocation. On intial Ax he was lacking 30 degrees elbow extension, was restricted in supination and pronation and he had increased tightness and trigger points around the elbow and forearm. So folllowing Ax I began to treat him. Treatment was progressing slowly but we continued to improve his range each session and were able to reduce some of the tightness around his elbow and forearm by using STM and trigger point release.

He was an extremely motivated patient who wanted to restore his elbow function as soon as possible. I treated him 3 times a week for 2 weeks. Following these two weeks he informed me that he had an appointment with his orthopaedic team and was to atend mid week the following week. All of a sudden his appointments were cancelled following the orthopaedic consult. I rang him to enquire as to the reason for the sudden cancellations. He told me that the consultant did not believe in PT Rx and that the elbow would get better by itself (as nature takes its course). The pt was told to just "let it be" and do passive type exercises as opposed to doing any active triceps contraction to achieve elbow extension.

I couldn't really argue with this and told him that letting the elbow heal in time was only one view. He then asked whether I thought he should be doing anything else. I advised him that gentle movement would be good for his elbow and a few other passive techniques would also be beneficial, having first discussed it with my supervisor.

This incident reinforced that there are many different views regarding the effect and implication for physiotherapy. Whilst in this case I believe treatment was beneficial for the pt and terminating treatment will not result in a favourable outcome, I appreciate that not all health professionals agree. It's frustrating, though, not being able to express your concern to the rest of the team, as you would in an in-patient hospital setting.