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On this week’s episode of the Healthy Wealthy and Smart Podcast, Nick Lucius and I chat about physical therapy wellness services. Nick is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist working with Barwis Methods as an Applied Coach in Port St. Lucie, Florida.
In this episode, we discuss:
-How to transition from episodic care to wellness services
-The role of strength and conditioning in physical therapy services
-Nick’s thoughts on the Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist
-How to develop a therapeutic alliance in a biopsychosocial model framework
-Advice for #FreshPTs
-And so much more!
When communicating desired outcomes to patients, it is important to stress the long-term wellness and quality of life aspects. He states, “have them understand that the goal is not to run you through the ground and to make you hurt, it’s really to empower you to live the rest of your life in the most positive and healthy way possible.”
In contrast to the biomedical approach to patient care, the biopsychosocial model can allow you to empower the patient and ultimately develop buy in for future wellness needs. He believes, “it really would benefit us to not look at us as a lifelong PT or lifelong clinician insinuating the mechanic, ‘Oh yeah, just come back to me and I’ll fix you up.’ It’s not like a car, you have feelings and emotions and thought processes, it muddies the water really fast, and that’s what really benefits having that wide range of education from strength conditioning to pain science to traditional physical therapy and that ties it all back in together.”
As a new graduate, Nick offers some advice for fresh PTs to, “Keep the hunger for knowledge and the hunger to really make substantial and life changing change for these individuals. When you get a couple of cases that might be discouraging or make you feel uncomfortable, everyone feels uncomfortable and at some point they got comfortable being uncomfortable, they got very used to having that hunger to try to keep driving to be better and better.”
For more about Nick:
Nick graduated from the University of Michigan with a Doctor in Physical Therapy in 2015. Previously Nick earned a Bachelors of Science from Grand Valley State University in Clinical Exercise Science in 2012. He is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Coach (CSCS) through the National Strength and Conditioning Association and CPR/AED certified through the American Red Cross. Nick began at Barwis Methods as an Intern prior to starting his DPT studies and is a Barwis Methods Applied Coach and serves as the National Director of the BarwisMethods Injury Recovery Program.
Make sure to follow Nick on twitter and facebook and find more educational materials at Barwis Methods where Nick is offering 10% off with the code: barwismethodsHWS!
Resources discussed on this show:
Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning
Neuromechanics of Human Movement
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Have a great week and stay Healthy Wealthy and Smart!
Xo Karen
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Thank you so much Dr. Karen for inviting Dr. Nick and giving us this wonderful opportunity to get more insight on wellness services. It is a great idea to spread health awareness to our society and help them act on it without any inhibitions. Just like many others, I also believe in putting patients before me and looking out for their betterment over mine. Moreover, that is one of the biggest point every students applying to any healthcare program make on their mission statements. However, it gets a little hazy as we go through the curriculum and learn more about limitations in various settings (access to resources) or limitations due to insurance rules. Meaning, sometimes we don’t have access to exact resources we would love to have to treat a particular patient. Thus, we have to do with what we have and make best use of it. Therefore, it was a nice reminder that we don’t have to be intimidated by those road blockers. If we want to do something, we can get creative and find a way around that road blocker to achieve our goals. According to me, this transition to wellness services is that creative way to make those resources available to our patients for their life enhancement. In fact, we can even incorporate them in our therapy to give a glimpse of this transition post therapy. That way, when they transition to the wellness services, they’re already familiar with the resources to feel comfortable enough to continue the path to their betterment with self-motivation.
I could not agree more! I incorporate wellness training into my practice and I love it! We are experts in movement so why not use it throughout the life span of our patients.