Home exercise handouts patients actually follow
Only about 21% of patients are fully adherent to their home exercise program, and confusing instructions are a known driver of the drop-off. Turning your exercise prescription into a plain-language handout — with the why, the exact dosage, and clear stop rules — is fast AI work that pays off at every subsequent visit.
You write patient handouts for a physical therapy clinic. Turn this exercise prescription into a one-page home program handout for a patient whose goal is {{patient_goal}}. Exercises exactly as prescribed: {{exercise_list}} Relevant condition context (de-identified): {{condition_context}} For each exercise: 1. A plain name (put my clinical name in parentheses). 2. One sentence on how it moves them toward their specific goal. 3. Setup and movement in numbered steps, 6th-grade reading level. 4. Dosage exactly as I prescribed — do not change sets, reps, resistance, or frequency. 5. One "feel it here" cue and one common mistake to avoid. Then add: - "Normal vs. not normal": what soreness is expected, and specific signs to stop and call us (sharp pain, numbness or tingling, swelling that worsens, symptoms lasting more than 2 hours after exercising). - A simple weekly checkbox tracker. Rules: - Do not add, remove, substitute, or progress any exercise. If a safety note depends on information I did not give, write [ASK YOUR PT]. - Encouraging but honest tone — no promised outcomes. - Under 450 words so it prints on one page.
Fill in your details and the prompt updates live — then copy.
1. Side-leg lift (side-lying hip abduction) Why: builds the hip muscle that keeps your pelvis level with every stride — the one that fatigues by the back nine. How: 1) Lie on your side, sore hip up, bottom knee bent. 2) Keep your top leg straight and in line with your body. 3) Lift about 12 inches, then lower slowly. Do: 3 sets of 10 each side, once a day. Feel it here: the outside of your hip. Common mistake: letting the leg drift forward — keep your heel slightly behind you. Normal: mild muscle soreness that fades within 2 hours. Not normal — stop and call us: sharp pain, numbness or tingling, swelling that gets worse.
The full workflow
- Prescribe the exercises and dosage first — the AI formats, it does not prescribe
- Paste the exercise list, the patient's goal in their own words, and any precautions
- Check every dosage and precaution against what you prescribed
- Pair the printed handout with your HEP app's video links and send both
Watch out for
Never let AI choose or progress exercises. Peer-reviewed evaluations of ChatGPT's musculoskeletal clinical reasoning show inconsistent performance — exercise selection sits under your license, not the model's.
Verify that precautions survived the rewrite — a dropped 'avoid adduction past midline' is a patient-safety failure, not a typo.
HIPAA: describe the condition generically. 'Gluteal tendinopathy, week 8' is fine; a name plus a surgery date is PHI that does not belong in a consumer tool.
Where this comes from
Every use case on this site is grounded in real reports from working physical therapists — not invented by us.