Mrs Claire Toose¹, Ms Stephanie Wicks¹, Ms Cheri Templeton¹, Ms Anne Darton², Ms Rachel Edmondson³, Ms Julie Bricknell³, Ms Joanne Glinsky⁴, Ms Lisa Harvey⁴

¹The Children’s Hospital at Westmead, Westmead, Australia, ²Agency for Clinical Innovation Statewide Burns Injury Service, St Leonards, Australia, ³Royal North Shore Hospital, St Leonards , Australia, ⁴John Walsh Centre for Rehabilitation Research, University of Sydney, St Leonards , Australia

Abstract:

Rehabilitation following burn injury is a specialised area, with patient outcomes dependant on the prescription of an individually tailored and highly specific treatment program.

PTX or www.physiotherapyexercises.com is a freely available, web based resource that allows therapists to design exercise booklets for their patients that include pictures and instructions written by expert clinicians in that area. In 2017, PTX and NSW Burns specialist therapists developed a catalogue of appropriate, meaningful and specific exercises for the management of adult burns patients, which were added to the PTX resource. The same group have now embarked on developing a catalogue of specific exercises for managing paediatric patients following burn injury, as the exercises prescribed and treatment course is significantly different for the paediatric population. Paediatric burn survivors have been used to demonstrate each exercise, with both a sketch and photograph of the exercises available on the website to increase understanding.

The PTX website can be accessed by therapists all over the world and used to enhance their understanding of burn specific rehabilitation exercises, design exercise programs that appropriately meet therapy goals, provide printed or mobile app based copies of patient’s individualised exercise program, and monitor compliance with treatment. This is a valuable resource both for experienced burns clinicians who can use it to improve engagement with and effectiveness of their therapy program, and for less experienced clinicians who can use it as a guide to the types of exercises needed to effectively manage the contractile forces of burns scars in specific areas.

Biography:

Claire Toose works as a Senior Burns Physiotherapist at The Children’s Hospital at Westmead. She has worked in Paediatric Burns for over 10 years, been involved in research in the area, worked collaboratively on projects as part of the NSW Statewide Burns Injury Service, and presented at ANZBA and ISBI in previous years.