One of my Favorite Treadmills….

Neuro-Musculo-Skeletal injuries are a common reason people seek out physical therapy. The spectrum of these injuries can range from mild strains and sprains to severe disruption of joints, bones and soft tissues. Injuries arise from a variety of stresses, such as traumatic injury, repetitive use, faulty postural problem, or sometimes from movement factors that are hard to identify on the surface. Physical Therapists are experts in understanding the systems of the body that produce movement, in both optimal health and in injured states. Physical Therapy works to promote a healing environment and speed recovery of injured tissues, understand underlying contributing factors, correct modifiable components and make adjustments for un-modifiable factors, correct problematic compensatory patterns and ultimately restore each person’s unique optimal movement potential.

“Pre-hab” can maximize movement health and preemptively remove barriers to post- operative healing to support optimal recovery when you get home after surgery:

• Address stiffness and swelling

• Correct problematic “fear-avoidance” behaviors

• Prepare for expectations of surgery, and equip with non-pharmaceutical pain management strategies

• Familiarize with the post-operative exercise regimen

• Make recommendations and home environmental adjustments prior to surgery

Post-operative therapy services:

• Mobile service eliminates the burden of arranging transportation to therapy

• Allows us to trouble shoot home-based functional mobility challenges right in the context where they occur.

• Walk alongside you to dot the i’s and cross the t’s of all the things you need to remember while your brain is very busy healing and recovering from the surgery

“I cannot recommend Shift Physical Therapy enough! Lisa provided essential care to me while I was injured during the height of the COVID 19 pandemic. She created a private, clean, well- equipped, and welcoming space for physical therapy. As a local Registered Nurse, I do not know a more intelligent, warm, and professional Physical Therapist. Not only is she knowledgable and kind, she is flexible. Her mobile services were wonderful when I was unable to drive to appointments postoperatively. Then as I returned to life as a busy mom, working professional, and mountain sport enthusiast, I was impressed with what great access I had to appointment times. Her communication with my healthcare team was top notch and her prices are competitive. Shift Physical Therapy is an amazing asset to our valley, providing unparalleled patient care!”
~Shift PT Client, 2020-21

That’s a mouthful diagnosis for sudden-onset dizziness associated with position changes of the head (in particular, the vestibular system located in the inner ear). I’m skilled in assessment and treatment of BPPV, and the mobile service offered through Shift PT eliminates the burden of arranging transportation while it is not safe to drive.

The presence of pain longer than 3-6 months changes the way the nervous system detects, transmits, interprets and responds to pain. A comprehensive physical therapy plan for chronic pain will address not only the tissue impairment and movement system contributions, but also consider the implications of mal-adaptive nervous system changes.

Physical Therapy treats a lot more than just pain! PTs are trained to identify and treat both intrinsic and extrinsic factors that contribute to fall risk. Shift PTs mobile services are perfectly-positioned to thoroughly assess safety and take corrective action right in the environment where falls are most likely to occur. If you’ve had a fall, are taking multiple medications, feel unsteady, or simply want to be proactive with safety as you age, routine fall prevention assessment can be the ‘ounce of prevention worth the pound of cure’!

A trusted guide to walk alongside during a healing process of a complicated injury and/or illness is essential, for what can be an arduous and at times overwhelming journey.

Multiple providers, each with their various specialty lens, may collaborate with the care plan. It’s imperative that communication pathways are open so that important details aren’t lost in the cracks. I have secure and efficient pathways in place and I prioritize time and clarity in communications.

My highly experienced approach is both broad and deep. Over many years of practice, I’ve developed deep understanding of several differing approaches, with an eye for how they differ, for how they agree, and for how they compliment each other. This has greatly expanded my understanding of multi-layered issues that don’t often fit into a neat and tidy box of one approach alone. Of equal importance, while I believe there is strong validity to this ‘unified’ approach, I’m also humble enough to say I don’t have all the answers either! I rely on collegial partnerships with physicians and a network of colleagues with varying approaches, and keep an open mind to help connect the dots when something isn’t adding up.

Most importantly perhaps, being willing to stand alongside people on a sometimes dimly lit path and partnering to take the healing process one step at a time can be powerful medicine with a complicated recovery process.

All Physical Therapy programs include a personally curated tool kit to equip you for success, which might include some (or all!) of the following:

• State-of-the-art home program tool that provides personalized live videos and digital or paper format tracking logs

• Innovative and creative education tools to help you understand your body, injury, and health

• Patient portal for secure communication and check-ins between visits

• Practice maintains a manageable caseload to ensure access to appointments

• Meaningful and collaborative goal and intention setting process and tracking tools

• Encouraging adherence support and payment model

• Open-minded and intentional inquiry to identify and overcome obstacles to growth and healing

• Documentation written not only for the purposes of your medical record, but as a tool for you to reference along the way for review, redirection and revitalization.

• Mobile Services: What you do in your world, every day, has a big and long lasting impact on your movement health. I meet you where you are, to assess the full picture and to establish a welcoming, engaging, and inspiring movement program that goes beyond the clinic to serve you in your world now and into the future.

• Nature is a powerful tool for healing, so much so that research calls it “Vitamin N” as more and more is understood about how powerfully it can support our healing. It abundantly surrounds us, and yet it’s still vastly underutilized in traditional clinical settings! Shift PT’s model weaves this ‘super-food macronutrient’ into your therapy to revitalize, encourage and inspire you along the journey.

“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.

Our movement system benefits from a regular check-in with a physical therapist the same way we check in regularly with our dentist and physician to keep our teeth and organ systems healthy. A movement system check-up looks at the way you move through daily functional tasks, screens for early signs of movement impairment at the pre-symptomatic stage when correction is easiest, and can support you to make healthy and realistic health goals to keep you moving your best now and across your entire lifespan.

• Introductory 1 hour workshops

• Mini-intensive 3 hour workshops

• Full 8-week MBSR curriculum

MBSR is an 8-week evidence-based, experiential program designed to provide participants with intensive and systematic training in mindfulness meditation and movement practices, and integrating into one’s daily life what is discovered and learned through the process of participating in the program. MBSR is based on ancient contemplative practices integrated with western medical approaches by a molecular biologist from MIT named Jon Kabat-Zinn. Kabat-Zinn established MBSR in 1979 and began rigorous research that has grown over 40 years and shown consistent positive outcomes associated with increased self-awareness, resilience, emotional and attentional regulation, and reducing symptoms for various physical conditions such as anxiety, depression, stress, chronic pain and hypertension.

Our innate healing processes are best engaged when we are well-nourished, getting restorative sleep, effectively managing stress, engaging in positive social connections, avoiding toxins, and getting the right kinds of physical exercise. These 6 pillars of health are the foundation of what is called “Lifestyle Medicine”, and are essential infrastructure for the body to respond in a meaningful way to physical therapy intervention. I am a doctoral member of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, which offers rigorously researched and unbiased guidance in topics that can be very hard to otherwise glean fact from fiction. Lifestyle Medicine is incorporated into Shift PT services through:

• Lifestyle Medicine workshop series and monthly newsletter

• Validated screening and assessment tools

• Integrated PT plans of care

• Interdisciplinary collaboration

Physical Therapy is available ‘direct access’, meaning you can come directly to a PT without a referral. As part of the training for holding this responsibility, PTs are trained to screen for the appropriateness of physical therapy services, and based on that screen, make a recommendation to either proceed with PT Evaluation and Treatment, or refer to the appropriate source for further healthcare work-up.

“I’m here to get it right, not to be right”.

~Dare to Lead by Brene Brown

The Movement System Impairment approach is a useful consultation tool to offer greater understanding of dynamic movement system involvement in cases where medical exam, imaging, and laboratory work-up haven’t established a complete understanding of someone’s condition. Over my 20 years of practice, I’ve earned a trusted reputation among physicians and medical teams in the region for critical thinking and highest quality care. Shift PT’s communication pathways are both efficient and secure, and consulting with difficult cases is built into the Shift PT model.