Bending your knee after a surgery in the area will most likely be met with much trepidation, especially when pain avoidance post surgery is a common issue. 

But what can help patients to release some fear during physiotherapy is a dose of fun in the form of virtual reality games.

Leveraging technology to benefit patients will be a common occurrence at Woodlands Health Campus (WHC) that is slated to open in phases in Woodlands Avenue 1 from 2022.

WHC broke ground in April 2017 as the first integrated health campus in Woodlands that comprises an acute hospital, community hospital, specialist outpatient clinics and long-term care facility.

Miss Jasmine Chia, 25, a physiotherapist employed by WHC, says: “The use of such technology can make rehabilitation more fun and effective in monitoring progress.” 

In addition, advanced technology can help in the more accurate and efficient collection of data between sessions to track a patient’s progress better.

Miss Chia, who is currently stationed at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital in Yishun, has completed serving her one-year bond with WHC after graduating from the Singapore Institute of Technology with Trinity College Dublin (SIT-TCD) in 2017. 

But she will move to WHC to help set up its physiotherapy department in future. 

Prior to taking a one-year degree conversion programme in physiotherapy at SIT-TCD, she was on a three-year diploma programme in physiotherapy at Nanyang Polytechnic after completing her A levels.

Her typical workday begins in the morning when she does some reading to get up to speed on the cases for the day, before attending to her patients in the wards. 

She wraps up her day with reports on key findings from each case in the hospital medical records documentation system. 

On certain days of the week, her team holds case discussions and in-service presentations to share interesting cases and updates in the medical field. 

An in-service presentation is a part of staff development and training where professionals discuss and share information within a team.

This training structure is similar to that of other medical professions such as medicine and pharmacy.
“We play varying roles through the patients’ rehabilitation journey — a confidante, a motivator or a teacher who educates and guides them in gaining autonomy of their health conditions. It is their smiles and being a part of their recovery process that motivate me to be a better physiotherapist,” says Miss Chia.

Miss Chia is nearing the completion of her basic physiotherapy training that enables her to become a “well-rounded” and competent clinician. She has an interest in Musculoskeletal (MSK) rehabilitation and intends to specialise in this area of work. She will now undergo specialised MSK training from this September in areas such as Emergency, Trauma, Orthopaedics and Sports rehabilitation. She will be part of the pioneering WHC rehabilitation team to establish the MSK outpatient department at the future hospital.