Telerehab Assessments: Live Virtual Consultations with Carolyn Vandyken & Darryl Yardley

Overview

Reading about telerehabilitation is one thing. Watching an experienced clinician actually do it — in real time, with a real patient, navigating the constraints of a screen — is something else entirely. This resource gives you exactly that. Carolyn Vandyken and Darryl Yardley each recorded a live telerehab consultation, unscripted, so you can observe how two seasoned physiotherapists think through assessment decisions, build rapport virtually, and develop treatment direction without laying a hand on their patient.

If you have ever wondered whether a thorough orthopaedic assessment is even possible over video, these recordings will change your mind.

The Cases

Meet Emily.  A young high school teacher with a four year history of low back pain.  Previous pelvic health physiotherapy and chiropractic treatment contributed to a loss of hope that her back pain could ever improve. What can we do for her on telerehab?  As it turns out, a lot!

Meet Dino.  A cross-fit athlete with a five-month history of shoulder pain.  Is it structural?  Can we effectively assess a peripheral joint and address high-level function through telerehab?  Darryl does a thorough assessment taking Dino into his gym to look for comparable signs.  Observe Darryl has he develops loading strategies that will help Brendan restore his capacity for ring dips and hand-stand pushups.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this resource, you will be able to:

1. Observe how a biopsychosocial history unfolds in a telerehab setting, including how a clinician listens for and responds to psychosocial flags in real time.
   
   
2. Identify the key components of a virtual spinal assessment, including how Carolyn uses the patient's movement history and pain behaviour to guide clinical reasoning without hands-on testing.
   
   
3. Recognize how a peripheral joint assessment can be conducted effectively via telerehab, including how Darryl takes his patient into their own environment to find comparable signs.
   
   
4. Apply practical strategies for developing loading progressions and home exercise direction based on telerehab findings alone.
   
   
5. Build confidence in your own telerehab assessment approach by observing how experienced clinicians handle uncertainty, adapt on the fly, and still arrive at a clear clinical direction.

Audience

This resource is designed for physiotherapists and rehabilitation professionals who are delivering — or preparing to deliver — care via telerehabilitation. It is particularly useful for orthopaedic clinicians who are confident in their hands-on assessment skills but unsure how to translate that competency to a virtual format. Clinicians who have already completed Telerehabilitation 101 with Carolyn and Brittany Vandyken will find this a valuable companion — a chance to see the frameworks from that course applied in an unscripted clinical encounter.

Why This Resource Matters

One of the most common barriers to telerehab adoption among physiotherapists is not technology — it is confidence. When you have spent years developing your hands-on assessment skills, being asked to work without them can feel like practicing with one hand tied behind your back. What these recordings demonstrate is that the loss of physical access does not have to mean a loss of clinical rigour.

Both Carolyn and Darryl arrive at clear, defensible clinical reasoning — not despite the telerehab format, but by working skillfully within it. Watching that process in real time, with real patients, is one of the fastest ways to close the gap between knowing telerehab is possible and believing you can do it well.