It’s clear that in order to gain an optimal outcome for the patient, we must first undertake a full assessment. Part of this involves an accurate differential diagnosis to ensure that the treatment is targeted and appropriately sequenced, directed towards the problem and the presented condition is the one that the professional is providing the treatment for.
It is extremely important to understand the individual patient issues to achieve this optimal outcome, and just as critical is treating the whole patient; that is to say a holistic approach and not one focusing just on the affected limb. It’s easy to enthusiastically focus on making the leg or the arm smaller, and not hear or think about other issues that the patient may believe are important to them; for instance, range of movement, functionality or how the limb feels. This means we need to continue to acknowledge the patient as an individual, as was presented in a previous editorial (Piller, 2014).
