I might be getting this completely wrong, but here goes.
Force plates. Hand dynamometers. Colourful graphs of all descriptions.
Physios love them. Docs love them. Patients love them. Newtons being discussed outside a physics classroom. Rate of force development that sounds like it belongs somewhere in the SpaceX programme.
If I was a patient I'd probably buy into it too. It looks impressive. It's kinda sexy-ish.
But here's the bit I can't quite square.
If you've got good clinical reasoning, good communication and a decent handle on differential diagnosis, you should probably already know what the issue is.
Yes, the kit might measure capacity. It tracks progress. It produces a graph that looks impressively objective.
But it doesn't explain why the patient is in pain.
Some of the best MSK clinicians I know wouldn't know where the on-switch is on half this equipment. Yet their patients still get better. Who knows. Maybe even faster.
And while I'm here, something else still puzzles me.
If this technology is the real deal, why isn't every patient getting it? Why is it often reserved for the "special" cases or premium rehab packages?
Medicine doesn't normally work like that. Either a test is clinically necessary or it isn't. Outside elite sport, who actually decides who needs it?
The slightly uncomfortable truth is strong people still get injured and weak people still get better.
Which makes me wonder whether the graphs are sometimes just confirming something a good clinician already knew.
Next time I might pick on diagnostic ultrasound. Which I love. But I'm a bit rubbish at doing.