Our Ask A Physio series is a collection of microblogs aimed at giving a basic understanding of some frequently asked questions. If you have an injury or are experiencing discomfort please book an assessment or contact reception for more information.

Why do we collect soo much health history & background?

We always used to hear at university that a good history is 90% of making a good diagnosis, and we really put this to the test with our online appointments over the COVID lockdowns! Of course, it is true, and even some of the things you might think are small talk (where do you work, do you have kids, what are your hobbies) give us tons of information about picking and solving your issue. We even got some interesting research over the lockdowns, showing that taking away our physical tests made a tiny if any difference in how accurate we were.

Generally, by the time we’re done taking a history we like to have narrowed things down to 2 or 3 likely suspects, which means that we don’t have to use every physical test under the sun on your sore body! That’s also why we like to run long initial appointments, a good history will often take 15 minutes or more, and a good history makes for an easy and accurate diagnosis.