Patient compliance to exercise prescription at the Victoria University osteopathic medicine clinic

Patient rehabilitation advice (PRA) is commonly used amongst a variety of health care practitioners to aid and enhance the recovery of their patients. Research has demonstrated a positive relationship between the level of adherence to PRA recovery from a variety of musculoskeletal conditions, and has shown non-compliance to home-based exercise programs reduces the probability of successful outcome for therapeutic intervention. No previous research has focused on compliance to prescription and methods of prescription used in the osteopathic medicine setting. As exercise has shown to augment treatment efficacy and speed of recovery, it is important that osteopaths are informed of the current likely adherence rate to PRA and all factors that may cause non-compliance to their exercise prescription. The overall compliance rate to PRA at VUOMC is comparable with previous studies, with the use of diagrams being the least utilised but most effective method of prescription in the VUOMC setting. This study provides a basis for understanding exercise prescription implications that are important both to osteopaths and osteopathic patients in enhancing treatment results in terms of speed and efficacy, as well as potentially reducing treatment costs to both patients and third party payers. This minor thesis was written by a post-graduate student as part of the requirements of the Master of Health Science (Osteopathy) program