Geaux to Physical Therapy - Latest Comments

Re: Physical Therapy Blogs

Binila Reubro — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:31:50 -0000

Medical iRehab
has been created to help educate patients about common sports medicine and
orthopedic injuries. A series of
applications have been created and are available for download from the iTunes
Store and the Android Market. The apps
are easy to use, contain information about various injuries and provide
information on pain reduction and recovery.
Check medicalirehab.com/home

Re: You Can Dance If You Want To

Tserpas — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 14:44:17 -0000

What a great article! Boy is that true. It takes some effort to commit to changing your routine, but you are so glad that you finally got off of that couch. You feel so much better both physically and mentally after a little heart pumping exercise. Thanks for the article.

Re: Choosing a Physical Therapist

MoniquePT — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 10:37:53 -0000

I agree patients do not know that they can go where they want for their physical therapy. Regardless of direct access when a physician prescribes physical therapy, the patient has the ability to choose a physical therapist. Direct access allows people to see a physical therapist directly without a prescription or referral.

Re: Choosing a Physical Therapist

pttennisdiva — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 17:22:01 -0000

I have found patients often are not given the opportunity to choose their PT, it is done for them by their physician. Most of the public does not realize 46 states have direct access laws giving patients the option to select their practioner.

Re: You know what really sucks?

MoniquePT — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 19:09:19 -0000

Bonnie- I had to pass on his story and enjoyed telling my patients about him and his accomplishments as well as his attitude towards adversity. Would love to meet ya'll someday.

Re: You know what really sucks?

Erschen — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 21:19:26 -0000

Thanks for participating with us on the MS150, Monique! What a wonderful event to do for your patients who struggle with MS daily. I am glad you were there Saturday evening to hear Dan's talk. He really is an inspiration, and a fighter. There are plenty of evenings he can't walk very well at all, yet he knows that tomorrow is always a brand new day. Hopefully we can meet you sometime!

Bonnie Erschen

Re: Compression Garments in PT

Handsburtsburts — Sat, 21 May 2011 22:53:57 -0000

Too many clinicians us TED hoses interchangeably with compression stockings. It's good to see correct usage in writing.

Re: Cortisone Injections: Helpful or Harmful?

Barb Daily — Mon, 09 May 2011 20:37:24 -0000

I have been trying to find the physiology on cortisone injections and increased blood sugar. After days of searching, I finally found you. Thank you!!

Re: You Have Two Choices…

MoniquePT — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 18:36:58 -0000

Thank you all for reading and commenting on my post! I always welcome a comment, and like to hear what other therapists’ viewpoints are. The audience of my posts is foremost the general public. The purpose of this post was to encourage people to seek the help of a physical therapist when they experience pain that limits their ability to move or participate in an activity. The second message is that exercise is important for maintaining health. The third message is that although someone may be experiencing pain, it’s important to stay physically active, even if that pain is a chronic condition that will not go away, such as arthritis or fibromyalgia. There is a lot of research into the positive effects of exercise on varying systems of the body. Consequently, inactivity has deleterious effects on health. I realize that pain is multifactorial and fear-avoidance can significantly reduce a person’s function. However, there are certain circumstances (e.g. low platelet counts for CA pts, fractures, risk of spinal cord injury…) in which exercise is absolutely contraindicated. This post specifically speaks to those who do not have these problems, but who have pain. Going back to the first point, see a physical therapist, a PT will be able to identify and educate patients in movements and exercise they CAN do and may be able to bring them back to the activities they used to do.

Barrett: What specifically is largely inaccurate about my post? Consider my audience and purposes. Do you encourage your clients to move or not? I visited the link, but had trouble finding your post about Lalanne. I did find your personal website and I see you teach continuing education specifically a manual therapy technique for managing pain called “Simple Contact.” It would be great if you could comment back with more information about this. Can you share a research reference to this technique and its effectiveness in managing pain? Is there research showing it to be more effective in managing pain than therapeutic exercise techniques, other manual therapy techniques, cognitive behavioral approaches, or a combination of these treatment approaches?

Michael: I did really simplify categories of pain. You’re absolutely right that it’s not just as simple as saying acute vs. chronic. There are many ways of categorizing or describing pain that is not just time-dependent (e.g. acute, subacute, chronic acute…) and that someone that has a chronic condition can present with acute pain. How do you communicate these differences when educating your clients? I completely agree with your point : “Stopping or reducing exercise is often a result of not understanding, poor experiences with some exercises, fear, anxiety and a change in overall function.” This is why I think it’s important to seek help from a trained medical professional. I have recently read more of Hodges research and am very interested! I’m looking forward to hearing him speak at CSM. I also like to use step-wise exercise. A reason for this post is that as you stated, people can become discouraged with physical activity, focusing in on what they can’t do and then avoiding it and exercise or movement all together. We- physical therapists- can help to change that behavior through instructing clients in the right types of movement and exercise.

Re: You Have Two Choices…

lbenz — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 14:36:45 -0000

Barrett: your condescending post shows both arrogance and shameless self-promotion. Not an easy task to do in such few sentences. Thanks for telling us that nothing else needs to be written about LaLanne since you recently did.

Re: You Have Two Choices…

Mak57_ — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 11:04:11 -0000

This post raises some interesting points for regular readers to your blog. A useful consideration I keep in mind is that: chronic pain is more than pain that lasts for a long time. I am not sure who said that originally but it has been a helpful reminder. While management can be broken down into two basic choices: move or don't move; for many with persistent pain the don't move option is more a choice by default. Stopping or reducing exercise is often a result of not understanding, poor experiences with some exercises, fear, anxiety and a change in overall function. A resulting cascade of negative changes happen - as you suggest several systems are altered. I attended a very interesting session at congress recently, with an Australian researcher(Paul Hodges) who described his work and introduces his concept: a triad of system involvement for LBP - respiratoty, bladder, msk - some fascinating information, the essential element hinged on considering multiple intersecting possibilites that be may useful in managing for low back pain. That research was focused on the low back but I think the work was brilliant and worth reviewing. As a general approach, merging some coaching principles with individuals with long standing pain is often beneficial. Establishing specific goals, small steps or a graded exposure to movement can make small but significant changes that leads to improved joint, muscle function and less sensitive more normalized nerve activity. Thanks for facilitating the discussion. A large topic for your blog but keep up the posts. Michael Kay

Re: You Have Two Choices…

www.therextras.com — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 09:40:10 -0000

You expect too much from one post, Barrett. This is an excellent post making a point about the benefit of exercise and SOME of the consequences of the lack of exercise. That there is other information on pain management does not discount what is said here. You suggest a false dichotomy between exercise and some other 'neuro' approach being the answer to pain.

Barbara Boucher, PT, PhD

Re: You Have Two Choices…

BarrettDorko — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 09:17:32 -0000

I think this post is simplistic and largely inaccurate. Just getting to the point. Go to SomaSimple.com for a great deal more about what neuroscience has revealed about pain. Join in. We'd love another opinion backed by actual evidence.

I recently wrote about LaLanne.

Re: Through the Physical Therapist’s Looking-Glass

MoniquePT — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 18:39:57 -0000

Thanks so much! I love being a physical therapist just for that reason.

Re: Through the Physical Therapist’s Looking-Glass

www.therextras.com — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 20:36:29 -0000

Excellent post! I analyze movement and tasks all.day.long. Pity the people who do not have such interesting stuff to think about!
Barbara Boucher, PT, PhD

Re: Exercise and Muscle Soreness

MoniquePT — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 21:29:44 -0000

That's a great idea! I'll be sure to do a post on that topic. Thanks for the suggestion.

Re: Exercise and Muscle Soreness

SoreFeet — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 02:40:32 -0000

Thanks for some great information! I think an excellent follow-up blog would be about preventing/self-treating sore, tired feet and legs after being on your feet for hours at a time (retail employees, hospital staff, servers, etc). For those of us in these industries, our ability to make a living depends on us standing for a long time, day after day after day! Ouch! Thanks for any help you can give!

Re: Anywhere Fitness

MoniquePT — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 18:59:06 -0000

I also think they could have more play areas for kids. What about stationary bikes, ellipticals, and seated steppers at the gates?

Re: DIY Therapy: “It’s like buttah”

Mark — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 19:59:22 -0000

I visited a physical therapist for the first time this week after twisting my back by hitting a bucket of balls on a cold day without stretching. My wife came to the first appointment with me. My therapist came over to me with a little blue plunger (my first thought was, "what did my wife say to her?". It worked like a charm on my IT bands. I bought two at Lowes today. Can place them without the handles. Relief!

Re: Specialty Physical Therapy Practices

Alan Waterman — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 07:27:29 -0000

Traditional Occupational/ Physical therapy provides the patient task orientated training (TOT) in the form of intensive repetition of everyday functional or active daily living tasks. Motor/ sensory feedback from the result of the task allows correction in the planning, initialization and performance of the task and assists in rehabilitation. Of course it is essential that the patient remains motivated and challenged to continue exercising.

The HandTutor is a dedicated rehabilitation glove and software that gives isolatted and co-ordinated finger exercises and the challenging games and biofeedback provides patients with the motivation to continue intensive repetitive fine motor finger and wrist exercises. The HandTutor is used in hospitals and community hand therapy clinics as well as through tele rehabilitation. Examples of patients that are treated include Stroke, TBI, spinal cord injury CP, Orthopedic hand and arm surgery, development co-ordination disorders in children etc.

Re: Specialty Physical Therapy Practices

Alan Waterman — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 04:19:37 -0000

The objective of Physical rehabilitation is to return the patients performance of everyday functional and vocational tasks to their pre injury level. The key element of Physical rehabilitation is intensive active exercise practice. Most importantly for upper limb rehabilitaion is isolated and combined finger and wrist intensive exercises provided by the HandTutor. The HandTutor is a glove and software that provides hand biofeedback. Challenging games and biofeedback provide patients with the motivation to continue intensive repetitive fine motor finger and wrist exercises. The HandTutor is used in hospitals and community hand therapy clinics as well as through tele rehabilitation. Examples of patients that are treated include Stroke, TBI, spinal cord injury CP, Orthopedic hand and arm surgery, development co-ordination disorders in children etc

Re: Concussions Are Glad to Be Taken More Seriously

Bob Schroedter — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 13:22:36 -0000

Oops...forgot the link: http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH...

Re: Concussions Are Glad to Be Taken More Seriously

Bob Schroedter — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 13:21:06 -0000

Here's another CNN article on how TBI may have contributed to this athlete's suicide. Definitely a serious topic that gets way overlooked. Thanks for bringing this to the fore.

On a lighter side (sorta), here's what NOT to do to avoid a TBI...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8wJts...

BOB

Re: Precious PRICE

serpman — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 14:25:03 -0000

very handy tip!

Re: Clicking Through “Forced Use”

MoniquePT — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 17:40:50 -0000

Thanks for sharing that information!