Evaluation of a province-wide physiotherapy monitoring service in an arthritis control program

We evaluated our rheumatoid arthritis patient follow-up service in British Columbia in a 1 yr prospective study. The follow-up by 45 specially trained Arthritis Society physiotherapists involved contact of 1,701 patients; 1,081 were assessed and 440 were judged to need therapy or physician services; 279 required further physiotherapy, 191 had functional problems needing occupational therapy and 108 had medical problems requiring return to the family doctor. Within 2 months 72% of patients requiring physiotherapy and 84% of patients requiring occupational therapy had received their therapy. The study underlines the value of physiotherapy follow-up monitoring of rheumatoid patients.