Our New Normal!

It’s been a busy week. I’m trying not to use the phrase “Uncertain Times” or any of the “C” words, so lets just agree things are happening quickly at the moment. Here’s an update on what’s happening at Parkside as of Sunday March 29

Firstly, some happy milestones. This week Trish Loder and Matt McEwan ticked off birthdays ending in “Zero” and Shelley Hill celebrated her 10 Year anniversary as our Practice Manager!

We are still open for face to face appointments. Physiotherapy has been classed as an essential service, we are taking advice from the WHO, Australian and NSW Health Departments as well as NSW Physiotherapy Council and making sure we are adhering to all the protocols and procedures. The advice is that as long as you

• haven’t travelled overseas,
• haven’t been in direct contact with a confirmed Covid-19 case and
• have no symptoms (fever, cough, sore throat or shortness of breath) we do not need to wear protective equipment and are safe to continue practicing.

We realise many of you are adhering to advice to self isolate and avoid unnecessary trips outside the house or are home with school children. We also realise that it is probably only a matter of time before more stringent isolation rules are put in place that will keep us at home too. For this reason we have a number of solutions available for you if you need our help.

Virtual Physiotherapy: we are now providing Physiotherapy and Exercise Physiology consultations via video using our existing software platforms. Many of you have received exercise video programs via Physitrack from us. We are able to conduct video calls using this App and it is an effective, safe way for us to assess your progress and upgrade your rehab program. As a fall-back option we are able to use Zoom as well. We are offering a FREE 15 minute Phone consultation to see if you qualify for a Virtual Physio consultation. Feel free to call 9548 3372 to book in your free phone consultation with one of our Physios or Exercise Physiologist

This week it was announced that Private Health Insurance will provide rebates for Virtual Physiotherapy Consultations. There are conditions attached, the main one being that in order to claim you need to have been in for an appointment in the last 6 months prior to the first Virtual Physio session. If you’d like to check whether you qualify our Front desk team can easily check that for you. New clients are restricted to chronic conditions or surgical rehab so if you have another issue you’d like us to help you with, then a face to face appointment done soon will qualify you for Virtual rehab going forward. This area of health policy is changing quickly, if anything else changes, we’ll keep you informed.

Home Visits: as long as all members of your house pass the 3 screening questions above, we are happy to come and see you at your home. We have a long history of providing rehab at home and see this as a perfect time to minimise your risk and come and help you where you are.

Self-Treatment equipment: If you need any equipment to help loosen sore muscles and stiff joints, we’ve got you. Foam rollers, spiky and trigger point balls and all grades of Theraband are available. We’re happy to safe-drop them at your front door too if you can’t get in and pick them up at the practice. These will be important tools and really helpful once we transition across to Virtual Physio consults in coming weeks.

I’ve mentioned in previous emails that we will be transparent with you regarding our team and illness. One of our team felt unwell with a cold last weekend, they self isolated and attended their local Dr. They have recorded a negative Covid-19 test and will return to work this week with no symptoms.

We’ve also been working hard on producing some educational videos for you to use for home exercise and rehabilitation. Head to our Facebook  and Instagram Pages, like and follow us there to see these videos first as we load them up.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about how Physio can continue to help you during the coming weeks. In concluding I’d reinforce our view that exercise and movement is even more important now as we are cut off from our normal social circles, that we should be very careful not to overload ourselves with disinformation rife on social media and that official channels are the best source of credible information and advice.

Keep doing what you love (in groups of 2!)

Matt McEwan