What patients think: The patient perspective on physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy in ALS

Remedial care is a central component of symptomatic and palliative treatment for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The subjective experience of therapies including physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy is largely unknown.


By surveying recommendations for physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy, Ambulanzpartner examined the patient perspective on their treatment.


We surveyed 256 people with ALS between 07/2014 and 08/2017 about their treatment. The Net Promotor Score(NPS) was used to record the probability of recommending the therapy online (“How likely is it that you would recommend physiotherapy (occupational therapy, speech therapy) to a friend or colleague (m/f) who has ALS?”). The answers are given on a nominal scale between 0 (absolutely unlikely to recommend) and 10 (highly likely to recommend) scale points. The evaluation was carried out according to the following system:


Likely recommendation: 10 or 9 points

Indifferent recommendation: 8 or 7 points

Unlikely recommendation: 6 to 0 points


The NPS was collected digitally via our outpatient partner care portal and the evaluation of the data shows that the probability of recommendation of all forms of therapeutic care is predominantly high to very high (Fig. 1).

Speech therapy has the highest recommendation rate. However, special speech therapy interventions are less clearly recommended (Fig. 4). Special physiotherapy interventions vary significantly in some cases (Fig. 2). In occupational therapy, on the other hand, there is no relevant difference in special therapy procedures (Fig. 3).