Top 5 Fridays! 5 PT Memes by The Awesome Physical Therapist

cue guitar riff

Those of you who use twitter for PT will no doubt be familiar with The Awesome Physical Therapist. He started out Cynical, but turned into Awesome. Guess the online PT community is overwhelmingly positive. Here are 5 PT Based memes, because you know, who doesn't like a good meme?

I'd say you can start out with this one and educate the public in general that discs dot not slip in and out
they may or may not be symptomatic either
even when they are symptomatic, we can rapidly change that, and if PT cannot, many self reduce or the fragments become reabsorbed on their own within months

ahhh the runner's ITB stretch, my favorite thing to teach never
not only can you not stretch a muscle, you cannot stretch fascia either
muscle increases in length by growing new sarcomeres in series, this takes up to 6 weeks, and that is with continuous stretching, 20 min a day
repeated movement, manual therapy, etc... all work, but the rapid changes are not mechanical, they're neurophysiologic

non-compliant patients, let's face it, we all have them
give someone a realistic HEP, none of this booklet of 30 exercises
if someone is too busy to do 1-2 things repeatedly throughout the day, they're too busy to take it upon themselves to make a difference in their condition

I have a love hate relationship with TDN, yes it's powerful reset, but it's invasive and that twitch response is really uncomfortable, and many times painful
when I have built my entire approach on causing no pain or discomfort with any input, it becomes a quandary when to use it (other than, not at all in NY State)
I can get the same rapid response from light IASTM, manipulation, or a simple repeated loading strategy that is hands off

the caveat is that as inputs, sometimes my go-to treatments are not getting the desired response, but TDN does, why is that?

not as invasive, therefore the expectation/placebo is not as strong
another clinician may have used similar strategies that did not work, thus negating the introduction of a novel input

look for a video next week where I demonstrate some TDN on a PT with chronic ulnar neuropathic pain, when IASTM, compression wrapping, and other resets failed to make a rapid improvement