Your comments: 4 July 2018

I recently visited Compton Verney, Warwickshire, to see an exhibition of British soldier art from the Crimean war up to today. I was interested to see on a Queen Alexandra’s imperial military nursing service’s cape, an early badge of the Chartered Society of Massage and Medical Gymnastics.

 

One wonders how it came to have been sewn onto this nurse’s cape, and the story behind this. Your readers may also be curious and interested in this badge and its history, as I was.

 

I was delighted to see the article on working in palliative care (Frontline 6 June). I worked for Marie Curie Cancer Care in Devon for 15 years, in their hospice and their community palliative care team. I was often asked ‘What is a physio doing in palliative care – what can you do there?’ The answer is a great deal.

 

You do need a wide knowledge and never to be afraid to contact colleagues working in specialism and pick their brains! Having been a respiratory physio at the London Chest Hospital, I often had mine picked.

 

I was an exhibitor at the ACPIN conference and a delegate suggested I get in contact with Frontline about the work of FND (Functional Neurological Disorders) Dimensions. We are charity with two main aims: to promote and to protect the physical and mental health of people with FND, and to educate the public about FND. 

 

I spoke delegates at the event, all of whom said they wanted to do more to support the increasing number of FND patients they were seeing, but were unsure of how to do so. They felt FND Dimensions was filling a much needed gap and said many patients wanted to meet others in the same position.

 

I cannot believe that anyone opts for major (hip) surgery without exhausting all other possibilities. What concerns me is that I discern an increasing level of blame put on patients who have not ‘tried hard enough’ – not only in this area, but also in others.