What is Performance Physical Therapy?
Let me tell you about a recent patient experience that fired me up. Patient tells me that they recently visited their orthopedic doctor. The doc says, “Great, your numbers look good, and you’re cleared by PT” after 3 months of outpatient rehab. However, the patient still does not feel like he is at 100%. He is no longer in pain, but he does not have full knee flexion, he cannot run, squat, or perform basic CrossFit movements. He was advised by his clinic physical therapist to “keep modifying”, “keep listening to your body,” and “slowly progress until you feel like you can try it out”. He feels that he is at 70% of his recovery.
Marissa, the patient.
Hi! I’m Marissa. Laughably, I don’t mean for this blog title to be a descriptor of my virtue or my personality (i.e. “Marissa, the patient person”), but rather a piece sharing my experience as an actual patient. At this point in my career, with 14 years of being in the physical therapy system (first as a student for 7 years and now as a doctor of physical therapy for 7 years), I’ve had exposure to hundreds of patients throughout multiple settings of the healthcare system. Thankfully, this winter I had the opportunity to become a patient, myself.