171: The Most Skipped Step in Assessment and Why It Matters Most (with Whitney Lowe)

About this episode

Whitney Lowe discusses the importance of client history in manual therapy assessment and introduces the OPQRST framework for effective evaluation.

🎙 The Most Skipped Step in Assessment and Why It Matters Most What if the most important part of your assessment never involves touching your client? In this solo episode, Whitney dives deep into the client history — the most critical yet frequently overlooked component of manual therapy assessment. While many practitioners rush straight into orthopedic testing or treat only where it hurts, the subjective intake holds the primary keys to understanding why a client is in pain, not just where. Whitney walks through the OPQRST history-taking framework — a structured clinical checklist covering Onset, Provocation/Palliation, Quality, Referral/Radiation, Severity, and Timing. Along the way, he shares vivid clinical examples showing how tuning your ears and brain to a client’s story can dramatically refine your physical assessment, catch crucial red flags, and help you design safer, more targeted treatment plans. ✨ Topics discussed include:• The assessment illusion — why jumping straight to orthopedic tests or treating where it hurts undermines true clinical reasoning.• O is for Onset — distinguishing acute biomechanical tissue overloads (like sudden eccentric muscle strains) from…

People in this episode

Host: Til Luchau

Guest: Whitney Lowe

Topics covered

• client history
• manual therapy assessment
• OPQRST framework
• subjective intake
• clinical reasoning
• pain assessment

Keywords

• assessment
• manual therapy
• pain
• clinical examples
• treatment plans
• subjective intake

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: The Thinking Practitioner

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