Your comments: 21 February 2018

Have you heard of the Transition Programme? It focuses on how services can help to ensure that young people with complex health needs make successful transitions from childhood to adulthood. 

 

A key finding is the need to provide developmentally appropriate healthcare for all young people aged from 10-24 years.  

 

As chair of the Association of Paediatric Chartered Physiotherapists (APCP), I recently attended an event to highlight the programme’s work. I believe it will be of interest to many CSP members, particularly those working with young adults with cerebral palsy. It is common practice to prepare a child for transition from paediatric settings but transition could be further improved if young adult services were commissioned in a way to support developmentally appropriate healthcare (DAH). A start is to use the DAH NHS toolkit, which is designed to help NHS staff  – from clinicians to chief executives – to promote the health of young people and to play their part in making healthcare work for those in this age group. Visit 

 

 

Frontline has not mentioned the Suffragette movement, which received a lot of media attention in recent weeks.

 

The more I think about our anatomy tutor Miss Stiff, the more I am sure she was connected with the movement. It would be interesting to know if other physios or masseurs were also in the movement.   

 

I trained at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital Birmingham. Miss Stiff, who was nearing retirement, was our anatomy tutor. For our very first  lecture, she drew a beautiful humerus and scapula. She coloured in the muscle insertions and origins – then turned round to face the class, winked and said: ‘Good old Suffragette colours’. 

 

In hindsight, not only was she a brilliant physio tutor. but she was probably also a suffragette. If so, she was one of the many we should be grateful, and thankful, for. We must never stop using our right to vote as we celebrate 100 years of ‘Votes for Women’. The CSP has benefited from these pioneers.

 

 

I work as a specialist physiotherapist in a multidisciplinary team (MDT) at the West of Scotland Mobility and Rehabilitation Centre (WestMARC) in Glagow. Readers might be interested in a document we produced, titled The WestMARK knee guide for the prosthetic MDT.

 

This provides information on all types of prosthetic knees and their training requirements. It includes a microprocessor knee chapter as well as one on normal gait and common gait faults in patients with an amputation. 

 

A ‘hints and tips’ section is aimed at both prosthetists and therapists. We plan to add videos for teaching and will update the document as experience grows.

 

To find out more from the Scottish Physiotherapist Amputee Research Group, 

 

To see the guide, visit