PREVIEW Patients are experts of their experiences Guesteditorial Somatosens Pain Rehab 21(1)

SpicherClaude

PREVIEW Patients are experts of their experiences https://urlr.me/Hth7L

Pain impacts so many aspects of life that it is more than likely that difficulty in one area of my patient’s life was associated to living with pain for so long even if it did not seem to be linked at first glance. Patients are experts of their experiences. Pain is unique to each person. Patients are thus experts of their pain. How can I (not the expert) support them in reducing their pain if I do not let them lead?

by Tamara SOGOMONIAN & Marie-An HOANG, MSc(A) OT, CSTP

DeAnMeKnautSibele

What an important reflection! In fact, letting the patient lead this dance is our biggest challenge. Whilst clinicians may be considered experts in the evidence base, patients have the expertise about what matters to them, and what is realistic at this moment in their life. It is worth emphasizing that it is essential that the clinician is confident and comfortable in the process of sharing experiences, knowledge and skills, so that the patient's self-belief is not broken. As clinicians, we need to create an environment in which the patient and their family can be optimally engaged in making decisions about their care, so that care is person-focused and tailored to the patient’s needs. As the clinician considers the influence of their own beliefs, values, and attitudes, they need to hone their skills to communicate with, rather than to the patient, in a manner commensurate for the attributes of the patient, the nature of the condition, the short- and long-term costs, benefits, risks and likely outcomes of the various interventions available. Our relation with the patient should be consider a dance, where patient learns to lead, and the clinician learns to follow, in an environment with appropriate access to evidence-based resources that is this analogy, is consider the music.

HoangMarieAn

Hi Sibele,

Thank you for your kind feedback! I appreciate the distinction you make between communication with vs. communicating to patients. The metaphor you use by commparing dance to the patient-therapist relationship really resonates with me. It portrays the constant negotiation of who takes place and how much place during therapeutic sessions: some sessions the patient takes more room and, as therapists following their lead, we give them more space and listen. In other sessions, the patient takes less room which is often a sign of them giving us permission to co-lead the session with them.

Marie-An