Patient Compliance with Physical Therapy Exercise Prescriptions

There has been only some research done on the successful effects of goal setting and patient compliance in physical therapy in order for patients to achieve maximum results. Three practicing physical therapists were interviewed in this study to explore how different groups of patients respond to their exercise regime and whether they face certain barriers when trying to recover. One of the questions examined was if there were different barriers within each group and should physical therapists address these issues to improve their patients’ com- pliance. Another question asked was what the physical therapists told their patients if the patients felt discouraged or didn’t see much improvement. Findings show that the physical therapists who worked with disabled university students faced a barrier in that the students often relied on Personal Assistants (PA) and if unforeseen circumstances arose, the Personal Assistants may have been unable to carry out their duties. In addition, it was found that all university students, whether disabled or not, faced the same barrier when completing their physical therapy exercises. They had to balance academic life with health, and finding the time to complete physical therapy exercises was especially difficult during finals. Future research could focus on interviewing patients and asking why they do or do not complete their home physical therapy program.Ope