CASE SCENARIO

Case 1. You are an outpatient physical therapist, and Betty is a patient under your care for restorative physical therapy secondary to tennis elbow. During one session, Betty confides that she’ll be attending her 15th high school reunion in 2 weeks and she really wants to look good. She explains that her friend wore a plastic suit in a sauna, lost almost 5 pounds in just a few hours, and looked a lot thinner. Betty asks for your opinion. When you give Betty feedback, you would want to share with her that when a person sweats, she loses water weight. Sweating a lot does not cause fat loss, only dehydration. Excessive dehydration can cause weakness and lightheadedness and even more serious complications if fluid loss and electrolyte loss are excessive. You need to be sure that Betty understands that if she wears a plastic suit in a sauna she will lose weight, but it will be water weight rather than fat weight. The weight loss will be temporary and could be dangerous to her health. This scenario underscores why it so important that physical therapists have a basic knowledge of fitness wellness.  

In life, there is no shortcut and that includes losing weight. As a physical therapists, I strongly suggest that my patient should not use the plastic suit sauna with the danger it can bring to her wealth. In this scenario, my patient wants to lose weight immediately for an upcoming events which happens commonly and I appreciate that she asked my opinion before proceeding to the said activity.It is important that I explain to her how the process works and the adverse effects such as dehydration, which could cause lightheadedness and worse is fluid loss and electrolyte loss. In order to do this, I should have sufficient knowledge about health and fitness wellness to explain this clearly and comprehensively to my patient. Furthermore, rather than using plastic suit in sauna I will tell her that she should exercise regularly to lose weight and at the same time improve her health. In conclusion, health should be placed before aesthetics and it is important for us physical therapist to have knowledge about health and wellness.