In the video below, NAIOMT faculty member, Stacy Soappman provides a nice refresher demonstrating a seated thoracic manipulation. 

Do you see patients with SI joint pain? In the video below, NAIOMT faculty member, Stacy Soappman, discusses her approach to testing and treating a 27-year-old male who came into the clinic with SI Joint pain.

The lumbar scan was done to rule out neurological involvement and serious pathology. As part of her lumbar exam she did a biomechanical exam including joint and muscular assessment. What she found was the patient had a lot of muscular imbalance between sides. 

Since he experienced stability problems of the SI joint, she choose stability work that involved stance activities, as the SIJ is designed to be more stable in a loaded position. For example, she had him stand on the wobble board and balance, do squats on the flat side of the BOSU, and single leg activities while moving the non WBing leg. To wean him off the SI belt she had him start by doing short duration activity without it and gradually increased the time each day he was out of the belt. 

Did you know you can earn your CMPT certification in just one year? Really. After a cohort of PTs thrived in and successfully completed NAIOMT’s accelerated program in San Diego in 2018, we have decided to offer this opportunity again this year.  

Here’s what one participant had to say about last year’s program:

“I joined as a PT in my first couple years of practice, and the clinical reasoning skills I learned as well as the finessed treatment and assessment techniques have significantly improved my success and confidence.” -Julie Dunn

Our accelerated program is designed to help you get through NAIOMT classes quickly, conveniently, and at a significant discount, plus offers support and continuity from classmates and instructors throughout the year. Here are a few key highlights:

In the manual therapy video below, NAIOMT faculty member Stacy Soappman discusses and demonstrates a modified seated thoracic manipulation technique that can be really useful in the clinic when your arms can't comfortably reach around a larger patient. 

Not just for girls, our Manip Like A Girl: Work Smarter Not Harder course is for anyone who wants to learn how to effectively treat patients larger than themselves. If you want to learn how to handle patients larger than yourself and do it with more efficiency and effectiveness then this is the course for you. Reserve your spot in one of these upcoming sessions:

Do you tend to see a lot of ankle sprains in the clinic? In the manual therapy video below, NAIOMT faculty member Stacy Soappman discusses sprains and demonstrates one way to treat the subtalar joint.

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 Dallas March 31, 2019 or in San Diego on May 19, 2019.

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.