Tulsa Spine and Rehab

When you set on a destination, it’s best to have the end in mind, a roadmap. That’s how you get somewhere and that’s how Dr. Riley gets you moving and into a healthier lifestyle. Dr. Riley joins us. Sean, tell us about this roadmap approach you have.

Yeah, Charlie. Many times I put myself in the patient’s shoes, meaning as the patient’s sitting in front of me, I want to visualize myself being that patient in front of a physician, whomever it may be. One of the things that is important to me as the patient personally is I want the physician or the provider to allow me the ability to be accountable. What that means is I want to get involved in my care. I understand that when I go to a doctor, he’s going to diagnose me and tell me what my problem is and he’s going to make recommendations to make me feel better, whether it’s medication or exercise or who knows, whatever the case may be. But thereafter I always ask, what can I do as a patient to maybe to speed up this process, to complement the process, most importantly to prevent recurrence? I tell patients all the time that I like you but I don’t like you that much. I want to do what we need to do to get you better and keep you outside of this office.

You want to see them just enough to get the job done, but more importantly when they come see you, Sean, my understanding is you give a patient tools to carry on.

Absolutely, and that’s what ties into the roadmap. Just like an architect or a builder has plans, it’s instructions. It’s where to go, what to do, what not to do, and that’s why when I release a patient, I have very specific instructions. Okay, this is our goal moving forward, and the goal, my goal, like I had mentioned previously, is to get them to a point where they’re not going to need the clinic and they have the ability to manage their symptoms moving forward, because very often low back pain is one of those things for a lot of us that we deal with periodically, whether it’s neck pain, whatever the case may be, but we’re talking about nonsurgical type mechanical issues, overuse type injuries. Sadly, those things are going to pop up from time to time.

We’ve also discussed in the past when it’s appropriate to pick up the phone. What are the telltale signs of I need to go see someone? But, I think it’s also so very important to have some management tools, a roadmap if you will, of what we need to do moving forward. The roadmap could entail a handful of things, Charlie. First off, we could talk about ergonomics, okay. I see a lot of folks that sit on their butts all day long, sit behind a desk. Okay, let’s talk about interrupting your sitting throughout the day. That is easy. That is so easy. So important, though. It’s occupations. Let’s try not to sit for more than 15, 20 minutes at a time. They look at me, big eyes. Just trust me on this one. Get up, move around, sit back down. It improves your posture. It gives you more margin for error.

Look at your environment. Where’s your computer? Do you have a sit-stand station? Do you have the ability to get everything in front of you? Neutral. That could be part of the roadmap. What are we going to do for home exercise, or what types of stretches are we going to be doing, or do we need to be doing stability exercises, strengthening exercises? Leveraging technology and giving them access to videos that we’ve shot here in the clinic, not a piece of paper that has been photocopied 100 times, and give it to every single patient that comes in. That’s part of the roadmap because that roadmap is specific to the patient. That makes sense, doesn’t it? Why would I give, Charlie, you a roadmap that I give the same roadmap to my wife? You guys have likely different conditions or whatever the case, and you need different direction. You need different floor plan, if you will. You need different plans to maintain it and prevent recurrence.

I know one of the things you do is you give patients videos to watch of various exercises they can do, and I know you have several hundred of those to choose from because you specifically choose ones that address the specific concern of each specific patient.

Right, and that that goes back to the piece of paper, that I have the ability to, early on, to do the treatment plan as we’re developing a roadmap. Here’s two things I want you to work on in the fall, because I will, like I said, talk about being accountable. I want to get going early as a patient. I want to get my patients on board early, meaning visit one, if I can give them one or two things that’s going to provide relief, I’m going to give them to him right then and there. And then as we’ve progressed through their treatment plan, as they start to respond and as they progress, I’m going to give them additional things.

But that roadmap, I kind of try to tie it all up at the end, Charlie, in that here are some things that we need to continue to focus on and these are the things to be mindful of, and part of that roadmap might include recognition of when it’s time to see someone; telltale signs whether it’s leg pain, the sharp shooting type stuff, those types of things, when it’s part of the roadmap might be keeping one of your other physicians involved in what’s going on or an orthopedist, whatever the case may be.

I think so many times that when we see physicians, when we’re released, you’re doing better, everyone feels good about the situation, but I think it’s so very important that we have that honest conversation of, listen, I want to keep you out of this clinic and I want to keep you feeling good and I want to keep you active and doing what you want to do. Part of the responsibility falls back on you, the patient, and my job is to kind of lay out what they need to be doing and encourage them and sympathize. It’s not easy. We’re very busy. We all have all these moving parts going on in our life, but sometimes we’re going to kind of fall off the wagon. I always joke that the most important time to do home exercise is when you feel good. We all want this thing. What do I need to do when I hurt my back? But it’s so, so important when we feel good to continue on with this roadmap doing some of these things to prevent it from coming back.

That’s the key to living a pain-free lifestyle. You’re going to come to Dr. Riley, he’s going to help you address the pain, but it’s not an event. It’s a process and it’s a lifestyle. That’s what I hear you saying.

Absolutely, and I think that throughout the … Like I said, from the consultation until that time I release them, if I can educate them and get them on board of what we’re trying to do, because it’s counterintuitive many times, Charlie. It goes against from what they’ve experienced in the past about ongoing treatment plans and coming back in over and over for transient or temporary relief. We’re trying to kind of develop a mindset with this patient that it is a lifestyle change, and the goal there is to get them to a point where they don’t need the clinic.

That’s a roadmap anybody would want to follow, Dr. Riley. Thanks so much for sharing it with us.

Thanks, Charlie.

You can learn more about all the ways Dr. Riley and the entire team at Tulsa Spine and Rehab makes that happen by exploring the website here at tulsaspineandrehab.com.

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