Since graduating from Saint Louis University in 1984 with a degree in physical therapy, I have worked within a medical model that depends too highly on medications, testing, and surgery. This is reflected in our high cost of health care and poor outcomes. Our bodies are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139) and hold tremendous capacity for healing when approached appropriately and holistically. Our tendency in healthcare – physical therapy included – is to compartmentalize the body into specialties: orthopedics, neurology, gynecology/women’s health, urology/men’s health, pediatrics, internal medicine, ear/nose/throat, vestibular, and more. Each encompasses their own tests/measures, diagnoses, medications, and invasive procedures. But the body knows nothing about our artificial compartments: there is no real division between the neck and the ear, the knee and the intestines, the foot and the bladder. They are all connected – left to right, front to back, head to hand to foot – by a marvelous connective tissue network. Understanding this network and how to best influence it has been the first part of my life’s work, and reflected in the countless hours of post graduate training I have pursued. The second part is in communicating this to anyone who will listen: patients, clients, and other providers of all disciplines. Such is the impetus for this website.
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