So what is similar about Horner’s Syndrome and how to functionally train a patient with a compromised alar ligament? The answer, my friends, is they both come up in our presentation in the NAIOMT Scan of the Head. This region is functionally, anatomically, neurologically and pathologically so very different than the mid-cervical spine. As faculty instructors, we present these two so very distinct areas on separate tracks, with the head scan alone taking up a good portion of one day of our Cervical Spine course.  

In the manual therapy video below, NAIOMT faculty member Stacy Soappman discusses a patient she saw in the clinic who had posterior ankle pain when running, and how she approached treatment. 

Ever run into challenges performing a lumbar gapping manipulation on a patient larger than yourself? In the video below, NAIOMT faculty member Stacy Soappman demonstrates ways to improve effectiveness--as well as safety for yourself--despite the size of your patient. Get more tips and guidance from Stacy directly in her upcoming Manip Like a  Girl: Work Smarter Not Harder course (not just for girls!) in Denver November 11 or in San Diego on December 9.

Time is one of the most valuable things we have. Patient's often struggle to find time in their busy lives to come to physical therapy. Saying yes to physical therapy means they might have had to say no to something else they wanted/needed to do.  It is our responsibility to provide patients with the most efficient and effective treatment possible to be respectful of the time they are choosing to spend in physical therapy. When seeing patients in the clinic we have a certain amount of time to listen to the patient, treat the patient, and hopefully give them exercises and education to take home with them.

Ever get to a point while treating a patient, where it feels like maybe you've exhausted all the tools in your tool box? Every PT has been there. We may see some promising results, but eventually end up back where we started. Yes, it's frustrating. But it's also an opportunity for our clinical reasoning to really kick in. And if you've put the time into developing those skills, they will guide you forward when you--and your patients--need them most.

In the video below, NAIOMT faculty member, Stacy Soappman, discusses a patient case of low back pain, where she ultimately decided to combine treatment--working the mutifidus with the quadratus lumborum simultaneously--to get her patient feeling better.

As PTs, and despite time constraints, we must always listen carefully to our patients, do our due diligence with testing and clinically reason through our patients' problems to find solutions that will work for them. In the manual therapy video below, NAIOMT faculty member and practicing clinician discusses how she used a sacro-iliac belt to help a hiker with complaints of knee pain.  

On a bi-weekly basis, I am repeatedly asked the same question from my low back pain patients/clients: Is yoga good for my back?” I am sure you would agree this is a multi-factorial issue because we know back pain is not a homogenous group--which leads to the answer “it depends.”

In the manual therapy video below, distinguished faculty member, Ann Porter Hoke, demonstrates locking of the lumbar spine from above, and how to obtain side-bending to the left and to the right. This is a portion of a larger video demonstrating both locking from above and below, and are components of NAIOMT's Lumbopelvic Spine level II Coursework.