Physiotherapy - very difficult!

It's certainly a full on course - not one of your eight hours of lectures and then head off to the bar. I seem to be spending big chunks of the weekend and some evenings studying

A few ideas - get together in study groups and help each other out. Have you got access to a skeleton?

Netter (and various others) do anatomy test cards, some with online access, so you can practise online - it'll put numbers on bones and you have to remember what it is, then roll the mouse over it to tell you

You may find you start to see patterns - not sure if you need to know muscle innervation too (I'd expect it) but it tends to work in chunks - so all the quads are supplied by the femoral nerve, all the hamstrings by the sciatic, adductors by the obturator nerve etc.

I used Palastanga a lot - it's an anatomy book by physiotherapists, your library may well have copies - it's got all the muscles grouped by joint and function, and pictures too.

I also drew lots of my own pictures (tried to do it from memory too) and gradually my knowledge improved. Looking at it now it seems easy but I can remember I worked hard to get to that stage!

Hope something in all that is helpful :smile:

Reply 2

you'll also hopefully find that words such as "fossa" "lateral" etc start to make sense, so often you can work the names out from these

If you have access to a DR then I found this really useful too

Reply 3

OP

Hi, thanks for your advice it really helps. So are you a 3rd year physio student?
I do have Palastanga and it's great also have derek fields which also good as it shows how to palpate. I definately have troubles with remember lateral/medial/proximal/distal etc, especially when i'm palpating someone i find it hard using the right anatomical terms that is why i am dreading the viva in january! I was told we do learn the nerves only for the main muscles though apparently.

Looking at pictures of muscles helps a lot i think and i also use aclands dvd which is very useful but sometimes its all too much. Especially because I have a pathophysiology exam in December. The rest of the modules are fine though because they're all coursework based.

Reply 4

I'm a little scared about this!! Applying for next year to do physio as a second degree. I only got a 2.2 in my first degree, but I think this was because I didnt really enjoy the subject, though I know my learning methods could be improved! I don't have the best memory, but I'm hoping that if I find something interesting and enjoy it then it will stick.
Which uni are you at Sarah?

Reply 5

OP

Hi, i'm at university of birmingham. Well all i can say is that it is difficult, be prepared to do A LOT of work whilst your flat mates are out getting drunk! but as you have knowledge of science it should be okay, that really helps.

Reply 6

I'm a second year - best advice I can think of is "work consistently" rather than try to cram it all in last minute.

The Acland DVD is great (even though I have access to a DR, it's a good back up) but in some ways it may be OTT for a first year exam. Can you find out what level questions are pitched at from people in the year above? I slogged my guts out learning loads of stuff and then questions were basicaly "identify a quadricep" rather than a particular one

I also tended to do drawing sort of like a cross section of the leg - and from that it showed up that muscles in one section of the circle were innervated by one muscle - so if you know the position of the muscle you can have a good stab at the nerve.

I also did things like make acronyms - either make a word out of the initial letter of the muscles (so for hip flexors for instance RIPPS - rec fem, iliacus, psoas major, pectineus and sartorius) or a sentence where each word began with the initial letter (so for the carpals - Some Lovers Try Positions That They Cannot Handle). The dafter the better!

Reply 7

SarahMckenzie

Hi, i'm at university of birmingham. Well all i can say is that it is difficult, be prepared to do A LOT of work whilst your flat mates are out getting drunk! but as you have knowledge of science it should be okay, that really helps.

How are you enjoying Birmingham? What's the city and the course like there? It's one of my options, but I'm not really sure where I want to apply other than Cardiff and UWE!

Reply 8

PotentialPhysio

SarahMckenzie

Hi, i'm at university of birmingham. Well all i can say is that it is difficult, be prepared to do A LOT of work whilst your flat mates are out getting drunk! but as you have knowledge of science it should be okay, that really helps.

scary that you say the course is so difficult. i am hoping to come to birmingham next year. what a levels did you do? i did all sciences i hope that'll help me. at the mo i'm more scared about the interview.... can you give me any ideas what the group interview is about and how i can prepare for it? please as much info as possible!

Reply 9

OP

djk_99

How are you enjoying Birmingham? What's the city and the course like there? It's one of my options, but I'm not really sure where I want to apply other than Cardiff and UWE!

Birmingham is great, It's a good uni too. Great places to go out and the bullring is great for shopping. Where else have you applied?

Reply 10

OP

iainmacn

I'm a second year - best advice I can think of is "work consistently" rather than try to cram it all in last minute.

The Acland DVD is great (even though I have access to a DR, it's a good back up) but in some ways it may be OTT for a first year exam. Can you find out what level questions are pitched at from people in the year above? I slogged my guts out learning loads of stuff and then questions were basicaly "identify a quadricep" rather than a particular one

I also tended to do drawing sort of like a cross section of the leg - and from that it showed up that muscles in one section of the circle were innervated by one muscle - so if you know the position of the muscle you can have a good stab at the nerve.

I also did things like make acronyms - either make a word out of the initial letter of the muscles (so for hip flexors for instance RIPPS - rec fem, iliacus, psoas major, pectineus and sartorius) or a sentence where each word began with the initial letter (so for the carpals - Some Lovers Try Positions That They Cannot Handle). The dafter the better!

How are you finding 2nd year? I heard 2nd year is better than the first as there isnt as much work to do (hope thats true!) I use acronyms too and it definitely helps, its a lot easier to remember things by.

Reply 11

well for us I think the second year is busier than the first. We have to do reearch methods as well which I find annoying even though I can see the importance of it.

I do like the placements though - my first and only one so far was a musculo outpatients and I just learnt so much! It stazrts to make it sooooo much more real.

Anatomy gets a lot more in depth - but if you understand the function then a lot of it makes sense, and also helps with the pathologies as well. In many ways for me, the second year a lot of the pieces have started to fit together rather than being isolated.

Reply 12

sunyellowshine

SarahMckenzie

Hey everyone, just started a Physiotherapy degree this year and i'm finding it very difficult. The anatomy is just too much to learn! and this year they have changed the curriculum so it's only a half module, so we basically have to learn all the muscles/bones attachements in less than a year and have our viva in January. Anyone else struggling with Physiotherapy?

Im a second year now, it's a very hard year for us, this year i where we build on our anatomy and learn ALSORTS about actually treating our patients.

Some thing I did to help me learn attachments was to get a skeleton, (we loaned ours from the physio dept.). Then I stuck blue tack in the areas of the attachments and labelled them. For a visual/kinesthetic learner it was really useful. I just wished I'd discover how useful it was months ago, and not the night before my exam!!!

Reply 13

SarahMckenzie

Birmingham is great, It's a good uni too. Great places to go out and the bullring is great for shopping. Where else have you applied?

I haven't actually applied yet. As I'm applying as a mature student (as mature as I can be at 22!), I don't have the whole UCAS frenzy from school around me. I really should get onto applying soon though! Definitely applying to Cardiff and UWE, not sure about the other 3 choices, probably Manchester for one, maybe Birmingham, Brighton, Bournemouth, Southampton. Not sure really!

Reply 14

I guess at 22 it might not be quite such an issue, but you might be interested in how many other students will be mature on your course. Some seem to have more than others - George's has a real mixture of people

Reply 15

iainmacn

I guess at 22 it might not be quite such an issue, but you might be interested in how many other students will be mature on your course. Some seem to have more than others - George's has a real mixture of people

I'd love to go to George's (I looked at it for my ugrad degree), but I just don't think that I can afford London. It's probably a great place to be a student though!
Doesn't really bother me about the mature student thing, I can make friends with 18 year olds quite easily. I work with a bunch of them at the moment, I think I'm one of the oldest people at my work!
Been reading your physio blog too, great work, it's really interesting! :smile:

Reply 16

suek

17

djk_99

I'd love to go to George's (I looked at it for my ugrad degree), but I just don't think that I can afford London. It's probably a great place to be a student though!
Doesn't really bother me about the mature student thing, I can make friends with 18 year olds quite easily. I work with a bunch of them at the moment, I think I'm one of the oldest people at my work!
Been reading your physio blog too, great work, it's really interesting! :smile:

I was a 22 year old fresher in healthcare too, I've found I've made friends with 18 year olds and also the more mature mature students. Kinda bridging the gap almost :smile:

Reply 17

JackieS

11

SarahMckenzie

How are you finding 2nd year? I heard 2nd year is better than the first as there isnt as much work to do (hope thats true!) I use acronyms too and it definitely helps, its a lot easier to remember things by.

That opinion will vary from uni to uni - I know at George's I found the 2nd year more difficult mainly because of the increase in work load whilst trying to juggle placements at the same time

Reply 18

physiopad

yeah its tough could be worse though! try doing anatomy in 11 weeks like us! :frown:

Reply 19