KristinMcNealus, DPT, MBA

Another game that I designed was a question board with corresponding color squares to tape to the floor. The goal is to toss bean bags, ideally with the weaker arm and land on each color four times to cross off all of the numbers. Two colors had actions on each card, like “tap your right foot to the right 10x.” But you can make the actions anything that would challenge the person’s impairments. I chose to have one color correlate to simple questions to address aphasia, and on

I have been a physical therapist for 15 years, working with adults, generally with neurological impairments, and honestly never considered how to make my sessions fun. Function was my goal, so high repetition and high intensity was most important. Then I had the opportunity to see one of my clients who had a stroke use a virtual reality system. It made a game of trying to utilize the weak arm as well as challenging sitting balance. My client had a lot of fun that she did not

As the weather gets warmer, it is a great time of year to get outside! Hiking is a wonderful family activity as well as a fantastic way to improve everyone’s health. Hiking can have the typical benefits of exercise, such as improving cardiovascular fitness. This can decrease the risk for heart disease and diabetes. It can also help with weight maintenance, and model health habits for the children to incorporate as they grow. Working out outside incorporates conditions that ca

As you may have seen on my social media, I decided to challenge myself to doing yoga for one month. Why did I do this? I noticed while I was working out and I was having aches and pains, and I knew that these stemmed from muscular imbalances. Honestly I am not the best practicing what I preach… I know I teach all of my clients about how important it is to incorporate stretching into your regular routine, however I do not do this consistently for myself. And over time, this ca

There are a number of reasons why you may not like your physical therapist. Personalities may not gel. Maybe you do not like the treatments the therapist is having you do. Or perhaps you do not think your therapist is helping you as much as you expected. This is not a fun situation, right? You know you need to have physical therapy, and depending on your health care coverage you may not have many options of therapists who are contracted with your insurance. So what do you do?

Be aware of these symptoms so treatment can start before someone falls, or before it leads to sepsis. The treatment is often a short course

I have provided physical therapy in every level of care, and universally, patients want more. I am here to tell you that your therapists want to give you more treatment, but as with everything, it comes down to money… Acute Care is when you are in the hospital, and are not medically stable. You need 24 hour care and monitoring due to a trauma, illness, injury, or surgery. Not everyone in the hospital gets physical therapy; the physician has to order it. Physical therapy is im

Cathy is a 60yo first grade teacher who enjoys crafts and going to church. While she has two adult children who live locally, she lives alone with her dog. One evening, she is walking her dog when she is hit by a pick-up truck that has run a red light. She sustains a traumatic brain injury, but is fortunate enough to survive. While in the hospital, she requires a ventilator to breath for her, and needs a tube placed for feeding. Even after she is able to breath on her own, Ca

Can your family members explain what you do for a living? My father underwent open heart surgery last week. I have a per diem job that I have worked for the past six years treating this patient population in the ICU/critical care units, and yet the following arguments actually happened: While trying to instruct my father on how to correctly progress the use of his incentive spirometer, he did not trust that I knew what I was talking about. He finally understood how to inhale

I did a little bit of home health as a way to earn extra income after I finished my day at this hospital, and I’ll be honest, I didn’t see my potential. I enjoyed working with my patients in rehab, and my heart was not in it when I went to people’s homes. Now I have been to thousands of homes, and I realize that I could have treated patients in the hospital for four times as long as I did and set up as many simulations as I could think of – and I still may not have prepared t

I have been consulting for health plans for four years, and it has brought me into thousands of people's homes. I listen to their version of what is going on with them medically, what services they have been provided, what they are waiting on, and what they think they need. I have learned a great deal about the limitations of our health care system. Most notably, there is not enough physical therapy coverage. I have an online service to allow people to get more exercise in th

Take a listen to this podcast on Private Practice Business Academy! I talk about how the PT profession needs to think about different business models to survive this changing health care system. https://goo.gl/CBTKwi #business #physicaltherapy

We're getting closer to October - which is Physical Therapy month! Although we should always be marketing our profession, this is a great time of year to step it up! I posted this hashtag idea last year, and hopefully we can keep it going! The general public still does not have a good understanding of how we can help them. I saw this interview this morning on MSNBC, which had me shaking my head... start at 2:00. http://www.msnbc.com/craig-melvin/watch/house-cmte-talks-va-vete

One way to promote the profession, as well as get more clients, is community outreach. Being a part of local races is always a great way to do this. Have a booth that helps provide gait assessment, or other screen. Participants and their families now know your local clinic is one to call when they need services. Another avenue to pursue is reaching out to local corporations. As a business, they are trying to contain their health care costs – offer to give an inservice to thei

Be okay with what you don’t know. If you spend the majority of time working with orthopedic patients, and a person who has had a stroke comes to you with shoulder pain, it is okay to step back and admit that you may not know the best way to treat this shoulder pain. Reach out to a local neurological PT for consultation, or possibly to refer the patient over to the other clinic. I know it sounds ridiculous to refer away business, but admitting you are not the best therapist fo

Over the past couple of decades, the practice of medicine has expanded, and now there are specialists for nearly every diagnosis. This is true for physical therapy, and yet we have not been as successful with letting the public know. I do not hesitate to tell poor schmuck #1 that he should certainly seek physical therapy for his knee, and that it is not my area of expertise. I go on to explain that there are physical therapists who specialize in orthopedic issues, and there a

With a plea from the Surgeon General for physicians to make an effort to address the opioid epidemic, timing could not be better to promote our profession! In previous posts, the importance of educating both patients and other health care professionals about how the goal should not be to be pain-free, but to get better – and that is what we do! Using this to initiate the conversation, the door is open to educate the public about all the ways that physical therapy can be benef

Let’s take a look back to how we got here. The “pain as the 5th vital sign” started in 1996 due to people with chronic pain not receiving adequate care. I know this may sound shocking, but the campaign was written with the help of pharmaceutical companies (more than a dozen that produced pain relievers.) And the prescribing of opiates began to increase, as did the American intolerance for discomfort. Doctors were taught, as was I in PT school, that “opioids are not addictive

Now is the time to promote physical therapy as THE profession to help manage pain! The Surgeon General has asked every doctor to help fight the opioid epidemic. That means we need all physicians, as well as the general public to know that physical therapy addresses the cause of the pain, thereby leading to less need for pain medications. We need physicians to know that they should refer their patients in pain to us before giving a prescription for an addictive narcotic. It is

It is important for all of us to promote our profession! The general public does not know our level of expertise, or all of the goals that we can address! We need to get the word out that physical therapy is not just for back pain, and we certainly do more than massage! Help spread this social media campaign! Get your patients and your colleagues to post - here is a video to help you. #physicaltherapy #marketing #socialmedia