Runners, it's time to put this craziness to rest. I hear it repeated, over and over again: runners seeking treatment from clinicians that relate the running injury to a leg length discrepancy. Worse yet, they then wonder why they aren't getting better.
It is highly unlikely - I repeat, highly unlikely - that your leg length discrepancy has any relevance to your running injury. Period.
It is time for clinicians to get over this "diagnosis of irrelevance" for the vast majority of clinical scenarios. It is utter crap. It does a disservice to both the current sport sciences related to running and the clinical reasoning process. But it pays - handsomely.
Today is a sad day in my world.
This morning I received the news of the passing of Dr. Barb Melzer, PT, PhD, DPT, FAPTA. At this point, I don't think that the phrase "having a heavy heart" will suffice. It certainly doesn’t do justice to the moment either.
There are many of us that are finding today otherworldly. Fellow physical therapist Eric Robertson shared some touching thoughts with the web earlier today. After pondering the meaning of today's events, and trying to make sense of it, I present to you a few words and thoughts: on her presence, and the small piece of her world that, fortunately, intersected mine.
One day. One second. One moment. That is all it takes for your world to change dramatically. When you are in the midst of it, you may not even realize it is happening.
The journey of life is a series of binary decisions - right or left, up or down, black or white - that wind us through time and bring us to the here and now. At any given point in time, we may have a destination based on goals or a 50,000 foot overview of our life. We may have a plan of how we are going to get there. It could consist of today's todo list, a monthly schedule, or a five- or ten-year plan. We have a set of expectations that we think serve as the basis for our future life: career, love, or happiness in general.
Then, the path changes. We hit an inflection point. Life happens.
Happy Valentine's Day, everyone. Was your day filled with chocolate? Hallmark? Roses? Or was it just a transitional day between the 13th and the 15th?
In 2011, I wrote a post entitled "365 Valentines A Year". I took the time to read it again today. It was then that I remarked that "perhaps in the midst of our daily lives, we lose sight that each and every day really should be filled with the love of friends and family and intimate companions. Perhaps each and every day we should appreciate the presence of those people in our lives that make our world a better place". A reminder of some very important things, indeed.
Another 365-day-a-year proposition is fresh rhubarb. It can be found each and every day. So with that in mind, I bring you episode 60 of the Rhubarb Report.
The storyline started a few weeks ago as a simple tweet: physical therapists "are highly educated, doctorate level professionals". Sounds reasonable enough, yes?
However, last time I looked, I am a physical therapist - a highly educated health care professional with 25 years of clinical experience and one of about 350 clinicians in the world with the highest level of training in Mechanical Diagnosis And Therapy. But I am not a doctor.
I replied with a simple "And what are the non-doctorates?". I will admit, I was curious to see what the response would be. Deafening silence awaited me.
It was the Three Musketeers that said "Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno", or "All for one, and one for all".
The physical therapy profession would do well to take notes.
You are sitting in a room with some colleagues or friends, having a nice relaxing discussion about work, or politics, or college football. Before you know it, some innocuous disagreement in principle or practice has evolved into a knock-down, drag-out heated debate. The room's net blood pressure rises. What happens from there is, more often than not, highly unproductive.
As long as we all have opinions, we will always run the risk of disagreement. If you live on planet earth and interact with others, you will at some time or another be faced with a similar scenario. However, moments like these can provide us with a great opportunity for learning and growth. They can provide us with the potential for open dialogue and depth of understanding.
If you can check your ego at the door.
When we find ourselves knee-deep in disagreement, how can we turn it into an opportunity for discussion and dialogue instead of diatribe and derision?
The 83rd Texas legislature is now in session, and with it comes the latest effort to improve patient access to physical therapy.
As it stands right now in the state of Texas, patients cannot receive treatment by a physical therapist without a referral from a physician, dentist, chiropractor, podiatrist, physician assistant, or advanced nurse practitioner. Contrary to popular belief, this is not an insurance issue - this is the law. Physical therapists are one of the few (if not only) health care providers in the state of Texas that require a referral for treatment. Texas patients can see a chiropractor, massage therapist, acupuncturist, rolfer, and even a personal trainer without a referral, yet cannot do the same with a physical therapist.
How does that affect patients? It serves as an arbitrary, unnecessary and costly access barrier - plain and simple. The current restrictions are not based on evidence; however, they increase wait times and cost to patients.
It is time to remove arbitrary barriers for patient access. This would be accomplished this session with HB 1039 and SB 402.
Up to 60% of runners will sustain an injury within any given year. Poor running mechanics, in conjunction with poor, ineffective and outdated training methods, can pose a significant injury risk. "RunSmart" was written to address these issues in the running community.
"Running Injuries: Etiology And Recovery- Based Treatment" (co-author Bridget Clark, PT) appears in the third edition and fourth editions of "Clinical Orthopaedic Rehabilitation: A Team Approach" by Charles Giangarra, MD and Robert C. Manske, PT.
Allan Besselink, PT, DPT, Ph.D., Dip.MDT has a unique voice in the world of sports, education, and health care. Read more about Allan here.
Top 5 finalist in three categories: "Best Overall Blog", "Best PT Blog" and "Best Advocacy Blog".
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