What happens at my first appointment?

At your Initial Consultation, you complete a New Patient Registration Form, from which we learn about your full medical history gaining information on any medications you take and medical conditions you’ve been diagnosed with. We also want to know about any accidents and injuries you’ve had. All of these may affect the way that your muscles, joints and nerves behave.

 

We ask you all about the problem that has brought to see us to gain as much information as possible and understand why you might have developed this problem. We’ll ask you when, how and why it started, how severe the problem is, what types of symptoms you’re experiencing, what makes it worse and what makes it better, whether there are other problems linked to this one and whether you’ve suffered from this problem or some trouble in the same area before.

During an examination we observe how easily you can move and stand and walk. We look at your posture for symmetry and to see how comfortably and evenly your body is positioned. We may ask you to move your back, neck and limbs and we help to move them for you looking for uneven, painful and/or stiff movements of the joints. We use a range of motions designed to give us specific information about certain joints, muscles, tendons, ligaments and areas of cartilage to help identify where your trouble is arising from.

We often test how well your nerves are functioning by checking your reflexes, your muscle strength and your sense of feeling of your skin. We may also check indicators of general health such as your blood pressure, pulses and temperature. We might listen to your heart, lungs or abdomen using a stethoscope and perform additional examinations of these areas if we feel they might be contributing to your symptoms.