Have you ever googled: why does my knee hurt? Try it…

You will see a bunch of random information.  Some will pertain to a particular provider advertising their practice.  Some will suggest that your pain has dozens of different potential causes without really helping you figure out why your knee hurts.

The big problem with most health related web pages is that the web page doesn’t have the ability to interact with you.  Yes you can ask a question to the search engine, but the search engine cannot ask you a question.

Therapydia’s website does well to solve the above mentioned problem.  Best of all, the website is a free resource for anyone to use.  On our site, under the “For You” green box is a section called “Research a Condition.”

Ask whatever you want regarding a particular injury / problem and a physical therapist from somewhere within the United States will answer.  Maybe your problem is an easy fix such as correcting the way you sit or lift an object.  Perhaps the solution sounds more involved and the therapist recommends you seek clinical care.

Although we don’t have the ability to solve all problems online, we do have the ability to start the process of gaining useful and specific information at the point of initial pain onset.  As a medical community, we have long sat within our “walled gardens”, tucking ourselves away in clinics and limiting our exposure to the communities that we are supposed to be serving.  Our ability to advance our skills and practices relies heavily on the ability of our communities to learn more about painful and debilitating conditions.

Please use therapydia.com and don’t wait until your first physical therapy appointment to ask your first question.

A Hui Hou,

Dr. Brett Carey D.P.T.