Therapy Burns. "Some of the machines we use generate heat. We also use both heat and ice, and recommend them for home care on occasion. Everyone's skin has different sensitivity to these modalities and rarely, both heat or ice, can burn or irritate the skin. The result is a temporary increase in pain and there may even be some blistering of the skin. These problems occur so rarely that there are no available statistics to quantify their incidence. Never put a home ice pack directly on the skin. Always have an insulating towel between." The reason we do that, is over the years, we've had to physical therapy burns and neither were actual heat burns, they were both ice burns. In both cases, the burn occurred at home from a blue ice pack and if you look at the blue ice pack, it says right on it, "Don't put it on your skin." We give a handout. "Don't put it on your skin." In both cases, the patient put in on their skin and they got a burn. We want to make sure that we're at least talking to our patients about it, telling them that it's no big deal. It doesn't permanently damage you. It will get better just like a sun burn, but don't put an ice pack or any of the other things that we recommend. Be smart and put something in between it, like a towel. We talk to people about soreness. I have a little teeny thing on soreness. It is common for the chiropractic adjustment, traction, massage therapy, exercise, etc. to result in a temporary increase in soreness in the region being treated. This is nearly always a temporary symptom that occurs while your body is undergoing therapeutic change. It is not dangerous, but please do tell your doctor about it. In other cases, I'm just telling them that soreness is to be expected, kind of like, again [inaudible 00:45:54] recommended. I end by saying, "There may be other problem or complications that might arise from chiropractic treatment, other than those noted above. These other problems or other complications occur so rarely it is not possible to anticipate and/or explain them all in advance of treatment. Chiropractic is a system of health care delivery and, therefore, as would any health care delivery system, we cannot promise a cure for any symptom, disease, or condition as a result of the treatment in this clinic. We will always give you our best care and if results are not acceptable, we will refer you to another provider of whom we feel will assist your situation. If you have any questions on the above, please ask your doctor. When you have a full understanding, please sign and date below our informed consent."
Stu, that was, essentially, other than whatever you want to talk about, my presentation with you this morning.
Dr. Hoffman:
Okay and that was great. One of the things that I would like to share along with you is that when introducing the informed consent itself, for me, I would be introducing to the patient that this is really an opportunity for the patient to communicate back with the doctor as the doctor is communicating with the patient. As well as to really raise awareness so that the doctor can get more information from that patient, perhaps about any history issues or anything like that. It's really the start of a communication and what I recommend to the doctors is to introduce this.
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