Teaching a Clinical Reasoning Framework for Treatment Planning Based on the Movement System Model
Purpose: To present a clinical reasoning framework based on the movement system and aimed at guiding students in integrating academic knowledge into effective treatment planning and clinical practice.
Description: Clinical reasoning skills are essential to physical therapy (PT) practice. PT education appropriately emphasizes diagnostic clinical reasoning models such as hypothetical deductive reasoning, available to novice physical therapists, and pattern recognition, more commonly utilized by expert clinicians. The clinical decision-making process for developing, implementing, and progressing a plan of care is equally important and should be thoroughly explored in PT education. This presentation will discuss a framework aimed at taking students through each aspect of the patient management model and incorporating the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health while emphasizing a clinical reasoning process for the development and progression of a treatment plan. Unique to this framework is its application to all patients, independent of diagnosis, as it assists the student in reasoning through the patient management model from the perspective of optimizing the movement system for improved function. The presentation will discuss how this framework has been utilized across the entirety of a PT curriculum aiming to teach students a systematic and complete thinking and reasoning process that gets built upon with each semester. It will demonstrate how the use of this framework across the curriculum has greatly influenced the integration of content across a PT curriculum and assisted in preparing students for clinical practice.
Summary of Use: This clinical reasoning framework can be used across a PT curriculum. It is designed to facilitate students' reasoning through the entire episode of care.
Importance to Members: PT education is the future of the profession. As we learn and apply more of our understanding of the movement system, it is important that students are able to integrate the content across a curriculum, to see each individual patient as an individual, beyond their medical diagnosis, and to reflect upon their experiences in a productive manner. This clinical reasoning framework seamlessly allows students to apply a clinical reasoning process, across the episode of care, for patients in all areas of physical therapy clinical practice.