Every KineTrue session asks how you're feeling before you start and after you finish. It takes a few seconds, and it's tempting to tap through it. Those taps are worth taking seriously: they're one of the most useful signals your therapist gets between visits.
The scale behind the taps
The 0-to-10 rating you give is a numeric pain rating scale (NPRS), the same instrument used in clinics and pain research worldwide, where 0 is no pain and 10 is the worst pain imaginable. Research has established something useful about it: across conditions like low back and shoulder pain, a change of about 2 points is the threshold patients themselves consider a real difference. Day-to-day wobbles of a single point are usually noise. A sustained two-point shift is the kind of change your therapist acts on.
Pain is data about dose
Your pain rating is one part of the clinical picture. A therapist may compare it with function, swelling, sleep, confidence, and what happened later that day. Recording the rating consistently gives them better context than trying to reconstruct two weeks from memory, but the number should never be interpreted on its own.
What the patterns tell your therapist
- A repeatable before-and-after pattern gives your therapist something concrete to discuss with you.
- A recurring increase may prompt questions about technique, dose, recovery, or whether the exercise still suits you.
- A trend can be useful alongside changes in function, such as walking, reaching, sleep, or confidence, not as proof by itself.
- A sudden change stands out immediately when reports arrive between visits, instead of surfacing weeks later at your next appointment.
Honest beats optimistic
Some people under-report because they don't want to seem like they're complaining, or because they're worried the program will be taken away. But an inaccurate picture leads to a program tuned for someone who doesn't exist. Report what you actually feel. Your therapist adjusts plans for a living.
Sharp, severe, or rapidly worsening pain is different from expected exercise discomfort. Stop the session and contact your therapist; that's exactly what the messaging is for.