Making the case for a patient education binder

Matt Dancigers argues that using visual aids – printouts of charts, diagrams, and images – is an effective way to help patients understand the science behind the therapy. As he puts it, seeing is believing.

From a patient’s perspective, it may help him/her to know where they fall on the spectrum of normal to abnormal and an image can quickly and easily convey those findings. Given the right illustration/diagram, topics that can be hard to explain in words can be very clear. So many of us are visual learners!

Matt includes a few illustrations that talk about the psychology of pain and this could be a good conversation started for an issue that can be hard to discuss. It’s also interesting to consider how these images could help patients develop more realistic goals and expectations for their treatment and recovery.

Check out Matt’s post here.

Do you use printouts and other visual aids in your practice? If so, have you found them to be effective? Let us know in the comments section below.