Awareness/UBPN Board thought
Awareness/UBPN Board thought
In light of the upcoming Awareness Week, I was thinking about what I believe are the two major medical misconceptions about this injury that have devasting repercussions to those that are injured and their families. I believe they are:
1 – that this injury resolve itself 90% of the time
2- that this injury is about “just the arm”
I think these misconceptions are devastating because it tends to minimize the injury, minimizes the urgency for early intervention (in the form of PT or even surgery), and focuses families and medical practioners (including therapists) on just arm issues, rather than focusing them on the whole body repercussions of this injury. Valuable healing time is lost due to this lack of understanding about the injury.
I’m sure others can add other misconceptions that they feel hurt the community and/or other arguments to support why these misconceptions hurt the community. Rather than start a debate though…I’d like to propose to the UBPN board that they take one or two of these issues, throw some time and resources behind it (volunteers, money, whatever…) and develop some concrete materials that counter these misconceptions with the TRUTH about this injury, and create awareness in that manner.
I know a lot of this literature is out there, even on this site…but I think we can take it one step further. The injury resolving itself 90% of the time…isn’t that based on a study out of UCLA that is terribly suspect to begin with? Maybe some on the board or others who are great at research can find that study and figure out ways to counter it. Thinking pie in the sky…is there a way that we could fund, or suggest this study to a University? Are there others that can then find ways to get the counter-arguments published in high-impact publications? What can we do to get these misconceptions out of the medical communities repertoire of standard answers?
Lisa
1 – that this injury resolve itself 90% of the time
2- that this injury is about “just the arm”
I think these misconceptions are devastating because it tends to minimize the injury, minimizes the urgency for early intervention (in the form of PT or even surgery), and focuses families and medical practioners (including therapists) on just arm issues, rather than focusing them on the whole body repercussions of this injury. Valuable healing time is lost due to this lack of understanding about the injury.
I’m sure others can add other misconceptions that they feel hurt the community and/or other arguments to support why these misconceptions hurt the community. Rather than start a debate though…I’d like to propose to the UBPN board that they take one or two of these issues, throw some time and resources behind it (volunteers, money, whatever…) and develop some concrete materials that counter these misconceptions with the TRUTH about this injury, and create awareness in that manner.
I know a lot of this literature is out there, even on this site…but I think we can take it one step further. The injury resolving itself 90% of the time…isn’t that based on a study out of UCLA that is terribly suspect to begin with? Maybe some on the board or others who are great at research can find that study and figure out ways to counter it. Thinking pie in the sky…is there a way that we could fund, or suggest this study to a University? Are there others that can then find ways to get the counter-arguments published in high-impact publications? What can we do to get these misconceptions out of the medical communities repertoire of standard answers?
Lisa
Re: Awareness/UBPN Board thought
hmm I wrote this in word and some of my dashes and quotes got turned into ? marks once it got posted. Sorry about that!
