Increasing Patient Compliance

Getting clients to buy-in to what we are teaching them and the treatment we provide is essential for follow through with a plan of care. 

Low patient buy-in is a recipe for short plan of cares with very limited outcomes.

People are going to buy-in to people they trust. Establishing trust is essential for the patient/client relationship. 

One consideration to make when talking to your clients is the difference between persuasion and convincing. 

Convince: causing someone to believe something is true

Persuasion: to do something or believe something

Generally people do not like to be convinced. This is because you are getting someone to do what you want them to do despite what their belief system may be. It can give off a "your wrong, and I'm right" kind of attitude.

However, persuasion is more about getting someone to do what they already want to do because of their belief system. People like to be persuaded because is a confirmation of what they already believe.

Example:

Imagine this common scenario. Your client needs to start exercising to get better. But they have a low desire to do any sort of exercise activity.

If you were trying to convince someone about exercise you would talk about the benefits. "I think you should exercise because it will help your pain." Or "Studies have shown that if you do this exercise that it will help". The conversation is very much "you need to do this, and not this" type of tone to it.

Whereas persuasion would show the client the outcome they are trying to achieve as opposed to getting caught up in minutia. 

Persuading someone to exercise might look more like: "This exercise is great for people just like you, who want to be able to play again with your kids without having to worry about that knee pain."

In the first scenario I was trying to tell someone they needed to do something.

In the second scenario I was showing someone how to do something they already wanted to do, but just didn't know the exact steps to achieve the outcome THEY wanted yet.

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