Ultimate Sports Rehab Expert: The Chunking Method
As rehab professionals, often times we obsess about the musculoskeletal system or the nervous system. However, it would be a short sighted to assume that these two systems are all that is influenced not just in a rehab setting but in sport and life in general.
Respiration, endocrine, limbic, circulatory, digestive, and all 11 systems interact with each other to help maintain homeostasis. Injury is a form of disruption to homeostasis. How the body responds to acute and chronic disruptions of homeostasis is a question you should be asking yourself.
The human body is a complex system of interactions. This alone is a impossible task to understand completely. But it's not just the human body we have to contend with…
The environment that we live in is perhaps even more complex with immense amounts of biopsychosocial influences. Past experiences, family, work, etc. are all other forms of external factors that can again cause disruption to homeostasis.
In the rehab world we often tend to take a reductionist approach to determining outcomes in a clinical setting. The thought is that breaking down the parts, one is much more likely to understand the whole. Research is naturally more on the reductionist end of the spectrum. This is because you have to control variables to elicit an outcome.
Here in lies the problem. Trying to solve problems in a complex system with a reductionist mindset. There will never be a yes or no answer to a human made up of complex systems constantly interacting within a complex environment.
This does not mean we should do away with research. Research is absolutely needed to give generalizable and predictable results based off of limited variables. The problem is, there is rarely a patient that presents with limited variables relating to their issue.
All that being said, we can use research in a very advantageous way to create efficiency in practice. We can chunk predictable treatment outcomes to particular set of presentations. The skill then as a clinician is to identify the MULTIPLE variables found on assessment of different systems.
Then initiate a treatment which will set off a “chain reaction” of sorts across all the systems in a positive manor. The intervention chosen and the ordering of interventions across a timespan is going to have the biggest effect on your overall patient outcomes as a clinician. Physical Pattern recognition is going to make you as a clinician much more efficient and save you treatment headaches down the road.
As part of being a sports rehab expert, it is imperative to understand human complexity and how a complex environment will factor into treatment. This allows the clinician to “chunk” together or spot deficiencies in your clients and create a pecking order of treatment interventions based off the "chunk" of limitations discovered.
For example: The treatment algorithm we use to treat an athlete that has a hamstring injury and trying to get back to 100% in a couple weeks for a combine trial will be very different that the methods we use for treating an athlete that presents with a history of chronic hamstring injuries and always seems to be plagued by this. This is first understanding the context of the injury, the scenario, and what particular emotions may play a role in the process. Then on top of that we need to recognize the individual himself and how they physically present on a case to case basis.
What systems can we physically improve? Which system needs the most improvement? If I was to address just one thing, what would have the greatest impact on all the systems interacting together as a whole?
These are better questions to be asking yourself.
In the below article, we discussed just what systems and qualities we as clinicians can impact.
The chunking method essentially is the ability to recognize what you can do, how it can be impacted, and which particular intervention will be most impactful given the context of a patient and the situation.
As part of a streamlined approach to recognizing these patterns and chunking them together so you can be a more efficient and effective clinician, The Ultimate Sports Rehab Expert was designed to do exactly this. Giving you the confidence and clarity with difficult diagnosis to handle them and improve your outcomes. Making you the "Go-To" expert in your area that gets results people can't ignore!
If you have questions about The Ultimate Sports Rehab Expert, feel free to send me an email at greg@sportsrehabexpert. Tell me a little about yourself, your goals, and your questions/concerns. I answer all emails personally, and look forward to being in touch soon!
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