Does it matter if my patient doesn’t improve on the outcome measure?

Reassessing an outcome measure during a session makes no sense for a neurological patient, except during an exam. The truth is that in neuro change takes time and any changes seen in a single session is probably just due to random chance.

Also consider that your patient is actually an actor. So the actual result of the outcome measures in your exam are neither real nor relevant.

The only things that matter are:

• That your outcome measure is reliable (not research level reliable) so that it has the potential to measure change accurately. An example of this could be timing a patient standing with feet together and eyes closed. Not a reasonable outcome measure for research, but it is for clinical practice.

• That your outcome measure relates to your treatment. Don’t treat foot clearance issues and then measure balance, use a gait measure like a 10m walk.

• That you know how to accurately complete the outcome measure

• That you remember to do an outcome measure and reassess after your Rx (and that you don’t run out of time to assess & reassess)

The key is to show that you understand what a reasonable outcome measure would in relation to your patient & treatment, and that you know how to complete it safely.

The actual result on your actor patient is just theatre….