Helpful when traditional therapies fail

I thank Dr Lloyd-Smith for his thoughtful review of my book.1 Bringing the Auto Accident Survivor’s Guide for British Columbia to the attention of family physicians and recommending it for use with patients involved in motor vehicle accidents will help reduce the considerable anguish many patients have in dealing with the medical-legal-insurance system after an accident. My only quibble is with Dr Lloyd-Smith’s perception that alternative therapies are overemphasized in the book and traditional treatments understated. I’ve alluded to alternative therapies only briefly (once in a section on common rehabilitation and once in discussing late down-the-line treatment for those with spinal cord injury), noting that these treatments “can be helpful when traditional therapies fail to eliminate physical and psychological problems.” Traditional therapies are discussed more extensively, with physiotherapy noted to be the most frequently recommended treatment after motor vehicle accidents. Further mentions of alternative therapy refer solely to the difficulty of getting insurers to cover it, even when it is recommended by family physicians. I bring up this relatively minor point because of what I perceive to be an automatic rejection of alternative therapies by many physicians. Clearly, as I note in the Auto Accident Survivor’s Guide, these shouldn’t be the first approaches taken. They have, however, been helpful to many people who have already exhausted the remedies available through traditional channels and are still seeking relief. Whether these therapies work to the degree they do only because of the placebo effect is irrelevant to patients who are finally getting a measure of relief. I’m very grateful to my family physician in Vancouver, BC, for recommending alternative approaches to me when I was still in considerable pain many years after sustaining multiple fractures and soft tissue injuries when struck by a car while crossing the street. Some of her other patients had found relief through these treatments; I did as well. Dr Lloyd-Smith helpfully pointed out my erroneous mention of orthopedic surgeons as a resource in evaluating soft tissue injuries. This is, of course, the physiatrist’s role; this will be corrected in the next printing.

Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.