by Dr. Frank Sovinsky
Chiropractors are correct when the say that patient education is vital to good patient management. It’s just that the old model of practice management and teaching ignores the science of learning. The new model for patient learning is what we call “Caretactics: Brain–based patient communication.”
Did you know that a war of neurons is being waged inside every one of your patient’s brain every time you interact with them? That war is being won or lost every time you answer a question, provide a strategy or deliver your adjustment. Your ideas about health and wellness and their ideas about health and wellness literally collide on the cellular level.
When I travel I use the Google Maps app on my Droid to help me get to my destination in the fastest way possible. And it helps me make other decision processes easier. Are there points of interest along the way? How about restaurants or health spas? Are there alternatives routes that are more scenic? These maps include frighteningly accurate satellite images, route instructions and estimated travel times. While I take it for granted, I can imagine that the networking of this information was years in development and that hundreds of billions of pieces of information contributed to the data base. And I trust that the instructions and suggestions are accurate or else I would drive off the edge of the planet. So now all I have to do is type in my destination, where I am located and it makes my decision process easier and my travel enjoyable.
Your patients have an app inside their brains and it helps them make their decisions about their health and wellness. It helps them find the fastest route out of pain and suffering so that they can get on with their overloaded lives. It helps them find other points of interest. They need the decision process made easier and in times of stress will rely on this “app” or brain map to guide them.
I think we can agree that most of our patients have a default program running. Their map is loaded with bits of data and imaging that is inaccurate. The media and the pharma industrial complex have included their faulty mindset about health care into this default program. This “allo-pathetic” health map is taking too many people to the wrong destination really fast.
Here’s what science says about learning and memory. Most of our moment-to-moment experiences pass rapidly into oblivion. But a tiny few are encoded in the brain as memories. The primary purpose of memory is to provide information to guide our actions in the present – decision making.
Neuroscientists use the phrase “mosaic memory model” to describe how these pieces of data get stored throughout our cortex and in turn form a brain map. And because of it’s plasticity the brain literally forms new maps or reinforces those in existence. This ‘competitive plasticity’ occurs at the synaptic level and is either increased or decreased depending upon the patient’s attention or motivation and upon your ability to make your ideas memorable.
While most of us have been taught that conversation is about imparting information—it’s not. Patient dialogue is in a real sense, behavior and emotional management. If you don’t manage the daily interactions the information you deliver is lost, never to return – them or the idea.
That’s why understanding the role of context is so extremely important. It’s not what you say, it’s what they hear. It’s not what you say, it’s what they remember. Because memory, it turns out, is often more a reconstruction than a reproduction.
Patient education is vital to good patient management. The battle is not patient against doctor it is the competition between brain maps. Learn a new teaching model and embrace the science of learning. People need you and your message. So upgrade your delivery and you can thrive in this new health care market.