Compliance to verbal and diagrammatic Patient Rehabilitation Advice (PRA) at the Victoria University Osteopathic Medicine Clinic (VUOMC)

The prescription of patient rehabilitation advice (PRA) encompassing exercises or stretches prescribed for completion external to a manual therapy consultation time is often condition specific and varies in accordance to a patient's diagnosis in order to produce a more successful outcome over a shorter duration. Previous research has investigated this problem in physiotherapy fields, but as yet has not been undertaken in an osteopathic setting. This study attempted to compare verbal and diagrammatic PRA prescription in the Victoria University Osteopathic Medicine Clinic (VUOMC) to new patients at this clinic. This study demonstrated that diagrammatic PRA prescription was more successful than verbal presricption when used at the VUOMC. The use of the diagrammatic PRA modality should assist the osteopathic practitioner to gain greater compliance and potentially better outcomes for the patient. This minor thesis was written by a post-graduate student as part of the requirements of the Master of Health Science (Osteopathy) program.