Ameya Kapur

Hi all! If you’re reading this, you have reached the senior research project blog of me, Ameya Kapur. I know it’s very hard to pronounce, not everyone quite gets it on the first time. However, that’s not the real reason you’re here, now is it? As a BASIS Scottsdale senior, I will be conducting a research project, Following Up on Follow Through: Physical Therapy and Patient Compliance, which will analyze the effects and implications of patient adherence to recommended treatment regimens (for more information on my project, click here). From February to April, I will be posting all of my lively experiences and (*fingers crossed*) newfound findings here for each of the 10 weeks, including one final post at the end (so please stay tuned!). But before we delve even further, first, a little about myself.

The first thing people usually say to me is “Wow, you’re tall.” Now, at 6 feet 2 inches, the struggle is real. For example, there are always those awkward moments when you’re standing with a group of people and you’re considerably taller than everyone else. Also, when it comes to buying clothes, it is probably one of the most daunting tasks I have come upon in my 17 years of living so far, especially if you have a lean body type like me. Nevertheless, I have learned to embrace and cherish it as something unique.  

The next thing people usually tell me is “Oh, so you must play basketball (based on my height of course).” Since freshman year, I have been a member of BASIS Scottsdale varsity basketball team. Currently, we are competing for one of the final playoff spots of the state tournament as we enter the final stretch of our season.

Basketball, and simply sports in general, has always served as an escape for me, a place where I can travel to for an extended period of time and not have to feel the stress of ongoing applications and essays, for example. When it comes to my favorite sports teams, I’m an avid supporter of the Arizona Cardinals, Phoenix Suns, and basically any team LeBron James plays for. I also love watching movies and TV shows, especially the Office, a show I’ve watched for more times than I’m comfortable admitting. And finally, I’m a people person. From cracking a simple joke to fostering heart-to-heart conversations, I have always tried to make an effort to connect with those around me and, as a result, develop myself further.

Okay, enough about me for now, let’s get down to the nitty gritty, the moment you’ve all been waiting for, my senior project. Starting the first week of February, I’ll be interning at Synergy PT, a highly specialized rehabilitation clinic dedicated towards helping patients improve their health and lifestyle. You can learn more about it here. As mentioned earlier, I will be studying patient compliance to certain recommended home exercises prescribed from the physician while also analyzing its implications on the patient’s health as a whole. Throughout this process, I will be working with two very intellectually stimulating minds, Ms. Kaur, my senior project adviser and middle school Biology teacher at BASIS Scottsdale, as well as Dr. Peries, my on-site mentor and clinical director at Synergy PT. Though only knowing either for a short few months, I feel confident in their ability to guide me through my first ever research project and excited to collaborate with their spirited personalities.

Wow! That was a lot of words; I can feel my fingers beginning to swell up. So I thank you for taking time out of your day to read my first blog post. February is right around the corner and soon enough I'll be able to make these posts on a more regular basis. If you have any questions, please feel to comment down below, I always love hearing feedback!

Last Week :'-(

Hey everyone! Aaaahhhhh, my time interning at Synergy PT has officially come to an end :’-(. I’ve met so many wonderful new people, and I definitely plan to come back and visit to reminisce all the amazing memories there :-). Now, last week I promised you guys some graphs and data, so let’s get into that first before delving in to my experiences for the week. I hope you guys are ready; buckle up and keep all hands and feet inside the vehicle, the week 10 blog post is officially underway!!

So for my presentation, along with displaying the aggregate data for the entire sample, I decided to implement two case studies on individual patients: one with heightened compliance and thus increasing improvement, the other with depressed compliance and thus stagnant improvement. For confidentiality reasons, I’ll introduce you to them as “Laura” (compliant patient) and “Bobby” (non-compliant patient). Now, with regards to Laura, she first came into the clinic rolling in a wheelchair with completely swollen legs and severe knee dysfunction. Fast forward six weeks of steadily monitoring her progress and analyzing her compliance, Laura transitioned to a walker and ultimately assisted walking (walking with the support of another therapist). Such progress is tremendous in such a short amount of time. But, how could this be? Well, Laura initially wasn’t a very compliant patient in the first two weeks of my survey, receiving scores of 50% (out of possible 100%). And as a result, she was suffering major setbacks and procuring marginal, if any, improvement. Now, this is understandable of course. With a condition as severe as Laura’s, continuous activity is essentially a must in order to regain adequate strength and function. However, she described to me the reason for her low compliance was simply her wanting her life back and enjoying simple yet sweet activities such as watching of TV or just relaxing in the couch. It’s unfortunate that such a simple desire ended up costing her health. Yet, thereafter, she made a point to pursue her therapeutic activities more diligently at home, scoring 100% on each of her final 4 weeks. She described that 75% of her active life was dedicated to physical therapy, highlighting the significance of continued work outside the clinic. And boy did she prove it, way to go Laura! :-)

Now, on to our next case study, we have Bobby. Bobby is a great man and has his heart in the best of places. He suffers from hip/feet pains his walking pattern, postural strength, etc. Now even though we mentioned Bobby is a noncompliant, it’s not because he’s being lazy or doesn’t trust the effectiveness of the therapy; it’s because he has extreme personal matters which really take up all his time :-(. Now yes, this isn’t something the therapists can control, but it just heightens the significance of the hour a week we have with him. Because of his personal situation, he rarely gets adequate sleep (something we high school students have unfortunately become too comfortable with). Yet, with his age and current condition, it is imperative he gets at least a proper and thus playing a factor towards his stagnant improvement. Every week that I’ve worked with Bobby, he has always come in extremely tight (in his muscles) and tired. Now, as we mentioned, this really derails him from “following through” with the treatment regimens we prescribe him at the clinic. And as you’ll see below from these two example, compliance, though as insignificant as it may seem, presents a very direct correlation towards improvement and is obviously not something to be taken lightly.

Now that you all see the power of compliance, let’s get into my experiences for this week! For starters, I got to feel what it’s like to get dry needled :-0!

As you see from the pictures above, it wasn’t exactly a painless experience, but I really wanted to try it as I see Vincent performing it on patients all the time and hear their loud screams thinking, “Cmon, it can’t be thaaatttttt bad.” But, I was wrong. It is THAT bad. But enough of my whining, let me explain what exactly dry needling is. Dry needling refers to a modality of therapy in which fine needles are inserted into myofascial (“muscle tissue”) trigger points, tendons, ligaments, or near nerves. The objective is stimulate a healing response to loosen up scarred tissue, this eradicating tightness within the area. I gotta say after having the needles placed in me, my right shoulder/back felt much more looser and displayed expanded range of motion (even though there was a bit inflammation, but that went away by the end of the night)!

Along with Vincent stabbing needles in my shoulder/back, this week was a great opportunity to thank all the patients I’ve been able to interact with. I’ve so many wonderful and compelling stores from such a diverse patient population; it’s something I will truly remember as I take the next step to college. In addition I got the thank my wonderful Synergy family for guiding throughout these past 10 weeks and teaching me anything and everything they knew. Vincent, Wendy, Danny, Chandra, Drew, Emily, Kathy, and Bruin: THANK YOUUU!!! I will always cherish to even have this amazing opportunity to meet so many new faces and learn leaps and bounds in such a short amount of time. And finally, thank you all for sticking with me during this amazing ride! Moving forward, I’ll be working on my presentation, hoping to nail it to the best of my ability :-). I’m both nervous and anxious, but that just makes it fun, right? Anyways, one last thank you to Synergy and my blog followers!!! Enjoy the weekend everyone :-).

Family <3

Stomach Flu :(

Hi everyone! As you can see from the title, I had the stomach flu this week and let me just say, it was not fun :-(. Currently, I’m almost fully recovered with on-and-off headaches and body-aches. Pretty soon, I’ll be 100%, jumping around and causing trouble just like usual :-). But, I do want to give a quick shout-out to my mom who actually stayed up with me while I was sick and  nursed me back to health. So thanks mom <3! Now with regards to my work at the clinic this week, obviously I wasn’t able to interact and connect as well as I would’ve liked to (Vincent asked to take it easy this week to recover), yet I still found ways to integrate myself and gather the necessary data for my research. I also managed to photograph the Synergy slogan which lies on the wall of the office, overlooking the entire clinic, and I really feel it fits the mood of this post.

That’s right guys, stand strong. I hope for anyone who had a tough week like me can be able to stand up once again and persevere even stronger :-). This slogan is something therapists here work to embed within each patient’s mindset. See, we have to understand that not all patients is privileged with adequate health, financial viability, or simply others to look after them. However, the only way for them to recover is to not focus on the negatives because that just brings them down even further, right? Many don’t understand that physical therapy is not only a physical battle, but a mental one as well. A patient’s will and hard work dictates his/her recovery. This even factors in and affects their compliance. Patients unable to “stand strong” may be less motivated to continue working and improve themselves whereas patients whom display that very will tend to display greater compliance and thus more efficient recovery. In all, always remember to have a positive attitude guys, you’ll be surprised how far it can take you! :-)

Now being that it’s week 9, next week will be my last week working here at Synergy :-(. The interactions and relationships I’ve been able to form with my co-workers and patients will never be forgotten. And speaking of patients, I gathered another week’s worth of data from my sample and am working towards putting everything together for you guys. Next week, I’ll display some graphs for you all, establishing the merits of compliance and its correlation with patient improvement. It’s definitely been a pleasure to share my experiences with you guys for yet another week and I can’t thank you all enough for sticking with me this far and monitoring my progress. Until next week!

Bright New Faces and Familiar Faces

Hi there, everyone! I hope you guys all missed me because I sure missed you. For some reason, it feels like forever since I’ve made one of these posts. Maybe it was the fact that this week was mostly much of the same ol’ process, but every week is progress and I’m still very excited to share it with you all :-).

So here’s the thing. Just when I thought we finally reached consistency within our clinical team, I see two new bright faces walk through the doors. I think it’s safe to say now that there’s always going to be students coming and going for their respective clinical rotations, and there really is no predictability as to how long a certain staff group may stay intact. Nonetheless, I still would like to introduce you guys to Chandra and Marissa. Both of these women are extremely driven and dedicated to their craft as they strive to work their way up in the PT realm. Each were able to connect and work with patients in their own unique way as I was there in the background steadily taking notes :-P. I think it’s safe to say that after my stay here I will have met so many new people, all with diverse traits and methods, yet all equally important to me and my growth as a person :-).

Also, I don’t know if you guys still remember Joe from the first few weeks of my internship (the guy with the amazing beard), but he came back to visit us all on Wednesday. I really got a chance to catch up with him and was able to get advice for college and other aspects of my not-too-distant future. But in case you guys wanted an update on him, he’s currently preparing for a presentation that he has to give in May (just like me!) and entering that final stretch of PT school, eventually making him a free bird :-). He mentioned he’ll also be coming back to visit next Wednesday so I’ll definitely be looking forward to that. But in all, good luck to you, Joe as you begin the end of PT school! :-)

SURVEY UPDATE: So the surveys have been coming along pretty smoothly. I talked to my faculty adviser, Ms. Kaur, and she told me not to worry about the sample size having decreased a bit (phew!). Essentially, since the data of the sample of patients I did manage to survey all seem to prove my hypothesis, there’s really no concern :-). But this week, I managed to compile all my data into a spreadsheet and over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be creating graphs and tables from that data and work to display a correlation between patient compliance and improvement.

Alrighty, that should just about do it for this post. I know this was a kind of shorter than usual, but this week was mostly the same routine as we continue to inch closer to the end. I can’t believe it’s almost here and I’ll definitely miss the family I have at Synergy. But for the next two weeks, I’ll make the most of my time with them and hopefully bring you guys some more exciting and lively experiences :-). As always, thank you all for taking time time out of your day to read my post and I’ll see you guys next week!!

Getting More Hand-sy...

Salutations viewers and welcome to yet another blog post! So, this week actually went by kind of fast; it was mostly the same old good stuff: surveys, stretches, exercises, etc. However, I did manage to take a leap in terms of getting my hands on patients…

This week, Vincent handed me the reigns of performing some palpation on various patients. What is palpation, you may ask? Palpation is a method of examining the body using one’s fingers and hands, usually to perceive or diagnose a particular illness. This is sort of a leg up from the stretches/exercises I performed on/with patients as I now begin to assume a more therapeutic role. Often time’s, palpation is best executed by applying lotion or cocoa butter to the skin (which I did this week :-)). Essentially, this allows for smoother “hand-work” on the body, further facilitating the diffusion of tension out from the afflicted region. 

Vincent also allowed me to prescribe some of my own exercises to several patients during their clinical sessions :-). Basically, he would have me call patients back from the waiting room, seat them on a table, and take down their subjective (just a fancy word for an evaluation form – how the patient’s feeling, any pain that’s concerning them, etc.). From there, it’d be up to me to either assign them to some stretching or have them perform certain exercises. For example, a patient came in yesterday having problems with her posture. She was somewhat of an elderly woman and of course with years of sitting and standing with improper posture, her shoulders began to shrug and her back began to hunch at an extreme degree. As a result, this accumulates slight back pain and a decreased height. See, the body will always want to take the path of least resistance, causing many people to shrug their shoulders and hunch their back because it’s easier than constantly standing up straight, keeping your chest out, and all the other mechanics for proper body posture. Therefore, it’s mandatory for you guys to fight gravity and make sure you’re always walking and sitting with a tall posture so that you won’t be regretting it later on in life. And remember, it may feel awkward at first, but gradually your body will become comfortable with it as it develops into muscle memory :-). 

Annnyyyywaaayyssss, sorry about that tangent, but let me get back to my example. So for this particular patient, I had her do scapular retractions with a band. Basically, she would be tasked with holding out the band in each hand with both her arms straight out in front of her. Thereafter, she would bring her shoulder blades back and pop her chest out without bending her arms at all, keeping her glutes tight, abs in, back straight, and chin up. I know, I know, there are so many little nuances to what appears to be a very simple, straightforward exercise. However, each intricacy is necessary in terms of actually making the exercise effective. Now, why did I choose scapular retractions? Well, for a good posture, the back should be straight and the chest should be prominent outwards. In this case, these retractions eliminate any shoulder shrugs as the shoulder blades are progressively being pushed back (this all while the patient is keeping his/her back as straight and his/her chest as prominent as possible). And finally at the end of the session, I asked her to practice this same scapular retraction motion at home, and hopefully she’s compliant and can achieve a nice straight posture in no time :-). 

Also since we’re on topic, the compliance surveys have been going pretty well. The game plan is to accumulate all the data and compile it into graphs and tables. And from there, I’ll analyze the information and hope to establish a correlation between improvement/muscle functionality with compliance. Hopefully *fingers crossed*, I’ll be able to statistically prove that patients whom are more compliant tend to experience greater improvement and muscle functionality than those whom are not. 

And yeah, that should just about do it for this week’s post. If you have any questions, please comment down below, I’d be happy to answer them and clear up any possible ambiguities. Thank you all for making it this far and have a wonderful weekend!!!

The Luck of the Irish

Hey there, everyone and happy St. Patrick’s Day! I can’t believe Spring break is actually over now :-(; I was just starting to get used to staying up watching the Office all night. But that’s okay because I’m ready to get back to business and man, do I have some interesting stuff to share with you all today. So, as usual, go ahead and grab a snack and buckle up this week six blog post; I hope you enjoy!

Where to begin… ah, where to begin? Well for starters, we added yet ANOTHER member to our team, Danny. Now, I know what you’re thinking: Why is it that every week there’s always someone new or someone leaving (or in some cases, both)? To be honest guys, I’m not exactly sure, but I’m hoping we can at last have some sort consistency as we creep closer and closer towards the end of my project. So again, I’m really sorry for any confusion and thanks for bearing with me thus far :-). But without further ado, let me talk a little bit about our new addition. Danny is on one of his clinical rotations, hailing from the same PT school as Vincent actually (convenient, right?). In just his short time here, he’s already been able to make an impact within the clinic through his simple jokes and reassuring smiles. In all, welcome aboard Danny! I’m really excited to learn even more about the depths physical therapy through a different lens.

 
Now moving on, does everyone remember EJ Gaines from last week’s post? If you need a refresher, he’s an NFL cornerback for the LA Rams coming in for offseason training and therapy. He came in Wednesday and not to brag or anything, buuuttttt… I wrestled him. Okay, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but hear me out on this. It was essentially a balancing exercise where EJ would have each of feet on a bosu. From there, I would use my hands to try and shove him off the bosus while he would aim to deflect my arms away and maintain his balance. I’ll admit I approached this drill with slight trepidation that I might get snapped in half by a guy who gets paid to tackle people. However, I managed to escape the drill alive, only bearing a couple scars on my arm; nothing too serious really. I even managed to gain some respect from EJ as we would fist-bump after every set. After that happened, I told myself I would never wash my hands again, but of course with the stomach flu and nasty bacteria spreading about, I had to :-(. I also actually felt a little treacherous towards the Arizona Cardinals in training with an LA Rams player; I just hope EJ doesn’t go berserk and get like 20 interceptions against us next year. Regardless, I still feel the Cardinals can manage to pull together a win :-).

   

And finally, let me give you an update on the surveys. I originally planned for a sample size of 20 patients to survey week in and week out to analyze their progress and compliance. However, I noticed that some of the patients don’t return every week because they may be sick or on vacation, etc. As a result, I’ll just have to make do with the sample I already have and possibly incorporate a more detailed analysis of the patients I do have weekly in order to compensate for the decreased sample size. So far, I’ve managed to jot down a set of notes for each patient which basically reflect how they’re functioning in the office and if any progress has been made since prior sessions. Hopefully, as the weeks go by, I’ll be able to establish a clear correlation between compliance and improvement.

Aaaand that should just about do it for this week’s post. Thank you to all who were able to read this far and I can’t wait to post again next week. Have a great weekend and make sure you’re wearing green today so you don’t get pinched!

Spring Break!!!

Hi all! As I mentioned earlier, this is my Spring break so unfortunately there won’t be a post about my research this week. Even though I technically didn’t have to go into work this week, I still visited a couple days for about an hour each to work on the surveys a bit. And GUESS WHAT?! I got to meet an NFL football player for the Los Angeles Rams. His name is E.J. Gaines. Guys, believe me I was trying so hard to keep my jaw from dropping during his PT session. I also felt like if I told him I was a Cardinals fan he wouldn't talk to me so I kept that to myself (for those who don't know, the Rams and Cardinals are HUGE rivals). But now that we're cool, maybe I'll tell him if I see him again and I'll let you guys know what he says :-). Also I’m going to try to get him in my survey sample so I can have an excuse to talk to him each week, but wish me luck guys!

Here's just some proof that I'm not lying :-)

(He's the one who makes the tackle)

Anyways, I hope everyone is having a relaxing spring break and we’ll be back on track next week!

Survey Tiiiiime

Hey guys! As promised, I have more pictures of your favorite dog, Bruin :-). I know you guys have been waiting for these all week so hopefully they can add that spark to what I hope is an already great day ('cause it always works for me, just saying). So without further ado, here you go…… CAUTION: THE FOLLOWING PICTURES DISPLAY EXCEEDING LEVELS OF CUTENESS

Now that that’s out of our system, let’s get down to the juicy stuff: what exactly happened this week. Well, for starters, we got ANOTHER new student that’ll be working with us. And as you can probably predict with this information, we had ANOTHER student leave us as well. It’s kinda been the trend for the past couple weeks. I’m sorry if there’s any confusion about this; I promise there will be more consistency as we delve deeper into the project. But anyways, the new student who’ll be joining us is….. *drum roll*…. Wendy! No, not the Wendy from the iconic fast food chain. Instead, this Wendy is on her final clinical rotation and will be with us at Synergy for the next 11 weeks. But wait, Ameya… what exactly IS a clinical rotation? Well, now that you ask, a clinical rotation is an opportunity for students to apply their knowledge from the classroom to real life medical situations while also helping them gauge what residencies are right for them. Remember Joe, Lori, Jordan, and Nicole from prior weeks’ blog posts? Well, they were all on the tail end of their own clinical rotations. And now, we have someone else who is also on the tail end of hers. Even though I just introduced her to you guys last week, Kirsten’s clinical rotation is actually only two weeks as she now heads back home to continue PT school. It was really nice working with her and understanding yet another perspective on how therapists approach and carry out their work. But, as I mentioned earlier, we also have a new shipmate on board in Wendy. And the thing about Wendy is that she always seems to prioritize the patients and their needs, allowing them to feel the utmost comfort in what is already a very welcoming atmosphere. In all, good luck to Kirsten and welcome aboard Wendy!

I also need to tell you guys about a very interesting hand exercise Vincent had me try out this week. It’s called the “rice bucket exercise.” I know that may not be very self-explanatory, but let me explain. In this exercise, patients are seated in a chair and before them is a giant bucket filled all the way to the top with dry grains of rice. The objective of the patients is to perform a series of wrist maneuvers in order to stimulate the wrist and forearm muscles while they dig as far as they possibly can into the rice bucket. The maneuvers include wrist abduction, adduction, and rotation (both clockwise and counterclockwise). The legend has it that out of everyone who has performed this exercise, only three have made it to the bottom of the bucket. Now, when I tried it, I thought I touched something that felt like the bottom, but I could just be tooting my own horn. Let's just say I made it for good measure ;-). Anyways, below is the setup for the rice bucket exercise. Trust me, it’s way harder than it looks!

And finally, last week I mentioned I would talk with Vincent about expanding my research and actually implementing it within the clinic. From there, I decided to include some surveys which would analyze patient compliance and connect it with any improvement (recovery-wise). The ultimate goal is to establish some sort of correlation between compliance and improvement. Now, I have to say, it was a really interesting experience as it allowed me to get even closer with some of the patients as I appreciated some of their honesty. One patient even jokingly said to me, “I have to tell you something that may skew your data… I’m not a very compliant patient.” And after that, we just laughed it off and I proceeded with the next questions. For some of the patients who displayed non-compliance, I found it interesting that when asked how important they felt the recommended treatment regimens they are given to exercise at home are (in terms of affecting their recovery, of course), they would often respond with an answer of “10” (on a 0-10 scale where 0 refers to complete insignificance and 10 refers to absolute significance). However, when later asked if they could honestly grade their compliance, they would sometimes respond with a “5” or a “6” (also on a 0-10 scale where 0 means they don’t do them at all and 10 means they do them no matter what). Therefore, this shows how despite the fact that many patients may value the treatment exercises they are asked to perform at home, there are still some who don’t exactly illustrate the same passion when it comes to actually doing them. And this can be said for a variety of reasons such as, the degree of difficulty of the exercise or possibly some personal matters that may occupy their time rather than stretching or doing something else to stay compliant. If you want to check out the survey and basically what I asked each of the patients, please click here. There’ll be more information/analysis on the surveys as we dive a little deeper into the project, I just wanted to give you all a small taste of what’s to come (I know, I know it’s a lot of information, but please bear with me; it’ll become much more clear in the coming weeks).

And as always, thank you to all who have made it this far. I’m sorry for the rather long post this time; a lot of important things happened this week and I just wanted to keep you all in the loop :-). Also, next week will be my spring break so unfortunately there won’t be a blog post from me for that time :-(. I’ll definitely miss you guys and I hope this break can make you all hungry for my next post which will resume the week after. Have a wonderful weekend and enjoy the break!

Another Eventful Week

Wooooohoooooo!!! Guess what day it is? That’s right, it’s a Friday and I’m spending my Friday night eating ice cream and writing my week 3 blog post for you guys (I know right, I’m a wild one). It really seemed like you guys enjoyed Bruin more than anything else I wrote about in last week’s post as almost every comment I read mentioned him. I’ll try and bring more Bruin pictures for you guys (that way you have more of an incentive to tune in every week :-P).

As the weeks have gone by, things have progressively been getting juicier and juicier (for lack of a better word). We’ve analyzed patients of many different ages with many different injuries. In doing so, we questioned them on their experiences with physical therapy and even worked to stretch them out/exercise them. See, many of the patients at this clinic understand the aggressive approach it takes, and while they may struggle and fatigue, the long term implications are what makes it worth it. One particular patient described this form of therapy as painful, but necessary. To put this in perspective, I'll hearken back to the senior quote I made: “Obstacles and struggles are just fuel to the fire that makes you stronger.” Trust me, I did not plan this, but turns out it ended up working out pretty well. Anyways, the main point is that everyone needs a little push to get to the other side; and here at Synergy, everyone is aware of that and embraces it (otherwise they’d be at some other clinic right?) But without further ado, let’s get into this week...

As I mentioned in last week’s post, today is the last day for Joe and Lori :(. From here, they will go on to continue their journey in becoming a registered PT and PTA respectively. And just as an FYI, PT’s are mainly concerned with diagnosing patients and prescribing rehabilitation programs while PTA’s prioritize preparing patients to be diagnosed and aiding patients in executing their rehabilitation programs. But anyways, a big thank you to Joe and Lori! I remember telling Joe I want a beard like his because the problem with mine is that it doesn’t connect and his does perfectly. So, if you have any suggestions to fix that, PLEASE comment down below, it’s really been bothering me lately.

In addition to the departure of Joe and Lori, there was also the arrival of a new student, Kirsten. She is currently on a quest to become a PTA and simply trying to familiarize herself within the clinic’s setting and working to hone the requisite skills of a PTA. Though Kirsten will only be here for two weeks, I am really excited to work with her as her outgoing personality seems to comfort every patient and allow them to build trust in her, something I’m working to develop during my time here. As far as my work in clinic this week, it was more of the same routine. I began filling out subjective sheets, which are essentially documents individualized for each patient, holding information on what therapeutic exercises/activates were performed during the visit and notes on how the patient was feeling coming into the visit. These records allow us to analyze any progress the patients are making and which exercises work and which ones don’t. From there, we may adjust the treatment regimens to what caters to the long term benefits of the patients. I also will be discussing with Dr. Vincent about some more in-depth analysis for my research and will work to bring in new concepts such as surveys into next week’s post for you all. But other than that, I think that’ll do it for this post. As always, thank you for tuning this week and I hope to see you next week for more exciting experiences and discoveries!

A Hands On Experience

Aaahh, looks like it’s that time of the week again! As soon as I finished my required hours for this week, my hands have been rapidly churning to type up my experiences for you guys, so I hope you enjoy and find what I do as something interesting and appealing to you :). So just sit back, relax, maybe grab some popcorn, and enjoy!

First off, if you tuned in last week, I introduced some of the team members I work with. But looking back at it, I seemed to have forgotten to mention a very important member of the Synergy family, Bruin. Bruin is the clinic’s therapy dog. Generally speaking, he roams around the office and approaches patients who look in pain. From there, he usually licks their faces or wags his tail out excitement just as a way of brightening their day. See, some of these patients who come in carry deformities, old age, and other limiting factors, which often impedes them from always having a positive outlook on life. Bruin’s main job is to provide some type of spark, big or small, to help these patients with their already tough lives and motivate them to get better. I know you all must be waiting to see what he looks like, so here’s a picture of him below:

Now that that’s over with, let’s get into what exactly I did this week.

I walked into the clinic, hoping to take on a bigger role and possibly work with some patients on my own (as opposed to the shadowing I did last week). And sure enough, my prayers were answered. Dr. Vincent extended my leash in a sense and allowed me to perform three basic hamstring stretches and certain corrective exercises on a few patients. Anatomically speaking, there are three hamstring muscles: the semitendinosus, the semimembranosus, and the biceps femoris. So basically, I was tasked with isolating these muscles individually through a series of stretches that work to eliminate any tightness and provide extended rage of movement. Now, each patient is different and has a different tolerance level. Therefore, as a therapist, it is important to feel for the patients and always ask them if the stretch is too much or too little, so they can maximize the full effects of the stretch. However, it is also important, as Dr. Vincent and the clinic instruct, to push patients somewhat beyond their limits in order to increase muscle strength and expedite the recovery process. Yet, this philosophy may be considered completely incorrect at other offices, which just goes to show that every clinic has its own methods. But when talking to many of the patients about this sort of aggressive approach, they all seemed to value it, claiming that even though a burning sensation may arise, it has proved to transformed their lives and make them stronger.

Unfortunately, for this post we may have to end things a little sentimental. This week, I found out the other four students I had just met last week won’t be working with us for the entire duration of my project. In fact, Jordan and Nicole’s last day was today, and Joe and Laurie’s last day will be next Friday. From here, they will take the next step in their PT journey as they return back to school and possibly conduct further research at other clinics. Even though their departure may open up more opportunities for me to work and connect with patients, these four have taught me so much in such a short time that they will truly be missed. So I'm throwing out a big thank you to them and to all of you who made it to the end of this post. I’ll be back with more eventful experiences next week. Enjoy the long weekend!

Just Warming Up...

Guess who’s back??? First off, I want to thank you all for your patience since my first blog post, I know you guys have been eagerly waiting for my next one :-P. But, let’s not keep you waiting any longer and get right down to it.

I had an amazing first week at the Synergy PT clinic! As soon as I walked through the doors on my first, I was greeted with the most welcoming smile from Kathy, the receptionist at the front desk, which immediately soothed all the nervous tension I had entered the office with. Soon enough, I was introduced into the clinic where I met the man himself, Dr. Vincent Peries (my on-site mentor). After casual salutations, the first thing he told me to do was to correct my posture. “Back straight, eyes up, squeeze those glutes,” he said with such conviction. Throughout the week, Dr. Vincent introduced me to several nuances in what humans consider simple everyday tasks such as standing, walking, and sitting. For instance, he had me practice my walking to experience what the patients go through. He mentions it’s important to have this so that we know how to perform these exercises before blindly instructing the patients how to do so. Therefore, as I was walking on a treadmill, he had me execute intricate heal-to-toe conversions, terminal knee extensions, and once again, severely tightened glutes in order to push off from one leg to another (You won’t believe how much my glutes have been worked just during my first week!).

Aside from making me continually sore, Dr. Vincent introduced me to several of his patients and allowed me to form deep connections with this really diverse group of people. I met individuals of many different ages, backgrounds and injuries. With each patient, I was able to hold a steady conversation, mostly on the basis of why I’m working at the clinic and what I hope to discover with my research. Starting next week, Dr. Vincent said I’ll be working with some of my own patients and will take on a much bigger role in the clinic so I’m super excited for that as these hands are super eager to help!

Now, as far as the team goes, I’ve only introduced you to two members, Kathy and Dr. Vincent. I was also work with several PT (Physical Therapist) and PTA (Physical Therapist Assistant) students from different schools from all over Arizona along with additional synergy staff. First, let’s start off with Jordan, the first student I met and had the pleasure to work with. Jordan has what I like to call a very “chill” personality in that he is always welcoming and easy to talk to. Next up, we have Joe. Joe has one amazing beard, one I aspire to grow one day, but that’s beside the point. His compassionate personality and willingness to do whatever to help each patient really proved to be eye-opening for me. There’s also Laurie. Every time I see Laurie, she’s always smiling and that smile seems to brighten up the clinic every single day. Next, we have Nicole. Whenever Nicole speaks to patients, you can tell they have the absolute trust in her because of her everlasting care no matter the circumstances, something I aspire to gain once I start to work with patients. The Last of the PTs is Drew. When I first worked alongside Drew, he welcomed me with such open arms and taught me the importance of adjusting your therapy style to the comfort of the patient, something that is especially important for strengthening that patient-therapist relationship. And finally, there’s the office manager, Emily, the main reason I’m working at the clinic in the first place as she was completely flexible in working me in with Vincent and for that, I am extremely grateful. Overall, I couldn’t have asked for a greater group of people to work with day in and day out throughout my research project!

And that pretty much sums up my first week at Synergy PT! I’m so excited to return next week and pick up where I left off. Be sure to stay tuned as I’ll have another blog post around this time next week and thanks so much for reading until the end. Have a great weekend!