COVID-19 affecting millions worldwide has notably affected Orthopaedic practice. There have been visible changes to clinical practice guided by emergency care, patient and medical caregiver security, and the availability of medical infrastructure. To address these changes, customised consultation aided by telemedicine is greatly been felt as the need of the hour.
Patients requiring critical or early orthopaedic consideration will be prioritised for a face to face orthopaedic consultation. This to a great extent relates to patients with musculoskeletal injury and tumours. Other elective careful cases can be attended by Digital consultation to let emergency services treat patients with affirmed or suspected COVID-19 symptoms like tiredness, fever or dry cough.
Containing the COVID-19 spread and Patient Care
Medical care needs to strike a balance between facilitating continuity of patient care and containing the COVID-19 spread. Non-urgent calls requiring long stretches of hospital visits have been delayed or cancelled. This has prevalently influenced knee and hip arthroplasty, spinal disfigurement redresses, and paediatric elective surgeries. Patients experiencing them by and large require longer medical clinic stays (3 to 5 days), which expands their danger of nosocomial contaminations due to the surface contamination of the Coronavirus pandemic.
As these cases can go progressively critical, they may contribute an extra pressure to restricted medicinal services. This is crucial when the clinical work additionally downsizes to guarantee that healthcare can run without putting the medical staff and patients in danger.
Telemedicine and E-Healthcare Scope for Orthopaedic consultation
Orthopaedic patients come from diverse demographics, treated by Joint specialists across all ages. Arthroplasty specialists are consulted more frequently by older patients who are battling multiple comorbidities, may consult telemedicine specialists over a telephone call or a video consultation. Elderly citizenswith medical comorbidities like hypertension, health disease are more likely to be affected by COVID-19 infections owing to their weakened immune systems.
Even though non-emergency surgeries have been deferred until the Coronavirus situation improves, virtual consultation can help patients with arthritis, joint pain,neck pain and lower back pain. Telemedicine emergency care makes it possible to treat common joint issues online like:
Knee Pain –
The knee is the biggest joint in the body joining the thigh and the leg. As people age, the knee is the most affected pain zone. This is primarily because our knees do a large portion of the work while we are walking or running for daily chores. Other reason for Knee pain can be injury due to misalignment of the bones.
Back Pain –
Back pain can be middle back pain and lower back pain caused by multiple factors which may include back injury due to picking up heavy weights, long sitting working hours during work from home adding pressure on the neck and smoking. Nicotine found in tobacco confines blood flow adversely affecting calcium absorption and restricting new bone growth. This is the primary reason why smokers take a long time to heal from fractures. If you face lower back or middle back pain with neck cramps, it is advisable to consult virtually consultan orthopaedic doctor for further diagnosis and treatment possibilities.
Ankle Pain –
Ankle joint faces a severe amount of injuries like the common ankle twist which we all have faced during a trip or a fall, casual sports activity may cause ankle pain, so does dancing. Consider applying ice to heal ankle pain, however, if the pain and swelling persists, consult a digital orthopaedic on the Gigadocs app.
Wrist Pain –
Wrist pain is the most common pain seen caused due to tedious pressure applied on the wrist, joint inflammation and carpal tunnel syndrome. Consulting a digital doctor on a practice managementE-healthcare app like Gigadocs can help you with an accurate diagnosis which is difficult owing to multiple factors contributing to wrist pain. Most frequent risk factors include exercising, repetitive work or certain prescriptive medications etc.
Hip Pain –
Hip pain must not be ignored, they support the weight of the body and any pain caused can indicate serious nervous disorders, osteoarthritis or genetic reasons. Book a digital specialist on the Gigadocs appfor an initial consultation if your or your loved ones have hip joint pain.
Elbow Pain –
Elbow pain is caused by tendon or nerve damage or a fracture or dislocation. Nerve damage is very dangerous worsening with forearm movements. In extreme cases, numbness of the hand is not uncommon.
Shoulder Pain –
Shoulder conditions which you should be worried about are dislocations, frozen shoulder, rotator cuff injuries. Cramps and pain originating from the shoulder can be the result of exhaustion because of overexertion, or even joint inflammation or injuries.
Wearable Technology for Joint Pain Diagnosis
Wearable technology incorporates the selection of telemedicine and telerehabilitation activities, permitting patients to be evaluated from their home. Wearable sensors and videoconferencing apps can prove to be valuable for remote monitoring e.g., assessing the scope of knee motion after knee arthroplasty, without exposing patients to tedious medical clinic visits.
Digitally aided orthopaedic specialists play an indispensable role in moderating the COVID-19 emergency is not a quieted one. Besides administering critical care, orthopaedics are champions to administer good hygiene practices, the importance of facemasks to their patients over a virtual consultation.
E-Healthcare and Gigadocs
Gigadocs is an intelligent practice management E-Healthcare software addressing to your complete healthcare needs and those of your family. Gigadocs facilitates the secure storage of your health care records and has an inbuilt digital prescription feature for a quick reference. Here is how you can book an Ortho for a safe digital consultation from the comfort of your home-
Download the Gigadocs app from the play store/ app store.
- From the App store/ play store download the Gigadocs app
- Check the availability of virtual consultants according to their specialities and book them according to the patient’s convenience.
- Before the digital consultation, share the patient’s consent over email, or during the digital consultation or on the telephone to the virtual consultant for them to view and diagnose their health records and vitals.
- After you have shared the patient’s consent, you will receive the digital orthopaedic appointment details and confirmation over an e-mail or text message from the Gigadocs app.
- The concerned patient needs to be virtually present for the consultation. If the digital doctor whom you have booked is not available due to any medical emergencies the patient can consult other specialist digital orthopaedics registered on the Gigadocs app.
Download the Gigadocs E-Healthcare app from-
- IOS App – apple.co/2W2iG4V
- Android App – bit.ly/33AQoRC
To know more and schedule a Virtual Consultation demo, e-mail, at info@gigadocs.com