Danger of assumptions

“More is better!”

Delivering more therapy sessions than necessary can lead to problems without increasing how much it helps.

It may seem to make sense that if an intervention or therapy is helpful, more of it may be even more helpful. But increasing the amount (or dose) of an intervention often increases the problems it may cause, without increasing how much it helps. You can have “too much of a good thing”.

For example, swallowing exercises can help patients with swallowing difficulties to improve their swallowing function i.e. eat or drink more normally and there can be a temptation to do lots and lots of exercises everyday. For some people this might be helpful, but for others, for example people with certain neuromuscular problems this may cause swallowing fatigue and make things worse.

BEWARE of claims that suggest doing more of a therapy is better just because a treatment is believed to be helpful.

REMEMBER: More is not necessarily better.