Innovation vs Evidence-Based: A Battle that Need Never be Fought
May 19th, 2020Recently, I had a conversation with a medical doctor on social media regarding the amount of unsubstantiated “treatments” being peddled around to mitigate the effects of COVID-19. He was contemplating the possibility of some type of online oversight by credentialed healthcare professionals (HCPs) of these dubious claims. I agreed that something like this would be
Unlearn What You Have Learned
May 6th, 2020In one memorable scene from the Star Wars classic The Empire Strikes Back, Luke Skywalker complains to Jedi Master Yoda that his X-wing spacecraft will never get out of the swamp where it has landed. Luke has learned how to use The Force to lift stones off the ground, but “knows” that the spacecraft is
Safer with Spinal Manipulation
April 7th, 2020When I began my physical therapy career almost ten years ago, my prior beliefs and PT school education left me with the impression that spinal thrust manipulation was a dangerous treatment technique. The only acceptable use for it was in 18-30 year olds in pristine physical condition, and only after all other treatment options had
Raise Your Game, Part 2
December 24th, 2019The graphic you see at the start of this post is from the movie Patch Adams, where a man committed to a psychiatric institution becomes a medical doctor attempting to restore greater humanity to the profession. The scene depicted here is Patch in the psych ward explaining to his attending (but not attentive) physician that
Raise Your Game, Part 1
October 28th, 2019During the past few years, as I completed a manual therapy fellowship, I have been much more involved with the PT community online. I have seen many blogs and tweets in social media promoting physical therapy with the #GetPT1st hashtag and giving testimonials on patient outcomes. I think these efforts are valuable and should continue.
Thrust joint manipulation the last resort in your toolbox? 3 Reasons It Shouldn’t Be
September 11th, 2019Reason #1 – It works. For some, it works very powerfully. I am the first person to tell you that thrust joint manipulation (TJM) does not work for everyone because I do it daily in clinical practice. Anecdotally, it is more common that TJM fails to improve symptoms when joint cavitation (popping) is not elicited
Grade V Mobilization: Does it mean what you think it means?
September 5th, 2019For those unfamiliar with the picture above, this is from the movie The Princess Bride in the late 80’s. After his boss Vizzini continues to exclaim “Inconceivable!” every time something doesn’t go as planned, Spanish swordmaster Inigo Montoya makes the confused statement “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you
Statistical Significance: Measuring the Needs of the Many
July 31st, 2019This post will certainly date me as I make a comparison to the classic Star Trek movies. At the end of Star Trek II, the iconic character Spock exposes himself to lethal amounts of radiation in order to repair the Starship Enterprise and allow it to escape a deadly explosion. After fleeing the explosion, the
Should Discharge be the End of Treatment?
June 20th, 2019It is common among physical therapists to think of therapy episodes as having a conclusive end. Indeed, some jurisdictions even require a formal discharge to be compliant with the state’s practice act. Insurance companies also tend to force patients to end their care definitively. It seems that these realities have influenced physical therapists to avoid
Passive Treatment and Self-Efficacy
June 12th, 2019This blog was inspired by a recent conversation I noticed on the Twitterverse, wherein two PTs were discussing passive treatments (i.e., treatment not requiring the patient to actively participate, including modalities, thrust manipulation, dry needling, other manual therapies) and their effects on self-efficacy. As has become the norm in PT circles, one therapist claimed that
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