#PTonICE Podcast

Alan Fredendall // #LeadershipThursday // www.ptonice.com

In today's episode of the PT on ICE Daily Show, ICE COO Alan Fredendall discusses the three pillars of evidence-based medicine: clinical expertise, current best peer-reviewed evidence, and patient input. He gives suggestions on how clinicians can better incorporate all 3 pillars to improve practice.

Take a listen to the podcast episode or read the full transcription below.

If you're looking to learn more about courses designed to start your own practice, check out our Brick by Brick practice management course or our online physical therapy courses, check out our entire list of continuing education courses for physical therapy including our physical therapy certifications by checking out our website. Don't forget about all of our FREE eBooks, prebuilt workshops, free CEUs, and other physical therapy continuing education on our Resources tab.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

00:00 – ALAN FREDENDALL Team, good morning. Welcome to the PT on ICE Daily Show. Happy Thursday morning. I hope your morning is off to a great start. My name is Alan, happy to be your host today. Currently have the pleasure of serving as the Chief Operating Officer here at ICE and a faculty member in our Fitness Athlete Division. We're here on YouTube, Instagram, the podcast on Thursday. It's Leadership Thursday, that also means it is Gut Check Thursday. Gut Check Thursday this week, four rounds for time, some interval work. Four rounds, 10 handstand pushups. Those can be strict or kipping. Read the caption on Instagram for some help with modifications if you're still working on those. 10 handstand pushups right into a 50 foot double kettlebell front rack walking lunge. Kettlebells in front of the body, working the thoracic spine, working the legs, 50 feet of a front rack lunge, and then out the door for a 200 meter run on the treadmill, whatever. The goal there is one to one work to rest. That means we're looking to finish that round in about two minutes. Work two minutes, rest two minutes, complete for four rounds. you'll be done in ideally about 16 minutes. So read the caption, check for modifications, scaling is needed to try to get your round time as close to two minutes as possible, modify the handstand pushups as needed, reduce the load on the lunge as needed, and then sub out the run for a row or bike as needed. So hope you have fun with that one. That's a great one that really facilitates intensity. You've got some upper body with the handstand pushups, some lower body with the running and some monostructural, with the lunging, sorry, and then some monostructural with the running. So a great workout to really drop the hammer, rest, repeat a couple times, really working on that anaerobic glycolysis system. Before we get started, just some quick courses coming your way. Today I want to highlight our cervical and lumbar spine courses. A couple chances left towards the end of the year as we get near the holidays to catch cervical spine management. This weekend you can join Zach Morgan up in Waterford, Connecticut. The weekend of November 11th and 12th, you can join Jordan Berry up in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. That's kind of the greater Boston area. And then December 2nd and 3rd, you can join Zach Morgan at his home base at Onward Tennessee in Hendersonville, Tennessee. Lumbar management, also a couple chances left before the end of the year. Next weekend, October 21st and 22nd, Jordan will be in Frederick, Maryland. That's kind of west of the Baltimore area. He will also be in Fort Worth, Texas the weekend of November 4th and 5th. And then you have two chances the weekend of December 2nd and 3rd. You can catch our newest spine faculty member, Brian Melrose. He'll be up in Helena, Montana. And then you can catch Jordan Berry at his home base in Onward, Charlotte, also the weekend of December 2nd and 3rd.

02:55 – EVIDENCE-BASED MEDICINE Today's topic, evidence-based medicine. A couple different ways to frame this. Are you doing it right? Are you doing it wrong? Or it takes a village of really drilling down and better understanding what comprises evidence-based practice. For many folks, they think it's the research. For others, they think it's many, many, many years of clinical expertise, pattern recognition, and others believe none of that matters. What matters the most is actually what the patient believes is happening, what they believe will help them, and matching our treatments, our interventions, our education as best as possible to essentially the patient input side of the equation. And if you're on the podcast, I'm gonna show a Venn diagram. You're not missing much, if I'm being honest. I've got it right here on the whiteboard. What we know with evidence-based medicine is that it's actually all of that stuff, right? It is three different spheres, three stools, whatever analogy or metaphor you've heard to refer to these before is correct. When we look at evidence-based medicine, is it an overlapping of, yes, scholarly evidence, peer-reviewed research, Yes, clinician experience, practice and pattern recognition. And yes, also patient expectations and beliefs, and that the point at which these three areas overlap is the middle where we have evidence-based medicine, evidence-based practice. But what you'll find is because of this overlap, none of these areas can be evidence-based on their own. So our goal today is not to show you this Venn diagram, but to show you when evidence-based medicine goes wrong, how it goes wrong, and how we can all get a little bit sharper at evidence-based practice in our clinic with our patients. So, let's tackle these points one by one. The first, the one we're all most comfortable with as clinicians is our own clinical expertise. Probably more important than anything else with expertise and experience is the pattern recognition, the dose response relationship that begins to form in our brain The more patience we see, the longer we've been seeing patience. This is, you could call this the 10,000 hour rule, whatever you want to call it, but the belief that the more work, the more time you put in, the more you will maybe, theoretically, begin to master your craft. And there's some truth to that and there's some non-truth to that as well.

05:06 – AVOIDING DOGMA IN PRACTICE

The biggest issue, as I have it written out here on the whiteboard, is that just focusing on this area in your practice, the bias here is that you become really prone to dogmas, becoming a dogmatic person, becoming almost a guru. We see this, of course, and we're going to mention it a lot on social media, of the approach on one side of the continuum or other. It doesn't really matter if manual therapy sucks. physical therapy doesn't do anything to the far end of that same continuum of, I believe that I'm putting people's bones back into place with things like spinal mobilization manipulation. So it doesn't really matter where people fall in the continuum, they fall somewhere on some sort of dogmatic continuum line, which is not great because it tends to the further they get into their own dogma and guru like behavior, the less they tend to incorporate research evidence from peer-reviewed sources and also the patient input. These people over time you may have heard phrases of I use what works with most people and the key there is that it works with most people not all people of the true person practicing evidence-based medicine the true clinical expert is the person that gets all almost every single person better. It's not enough to get 50% of your patients better, or 60, or 70. You should, or we hope you would be pursuing excellence in such a manner that you're thinking, how can I help 99.99% of people? And again, just focusing so much on one of the three aspects of evidence-based medicine with your clinical expertise is not gonna cut it. I often think of how much pattern recognition informs practice, but that doesn't mean that that's what we do with every person. I often think of when people come into the clinic, they present with anterior shoulder pain, what we might call instability, the feeling of looseness in the joint or otherwise just pain or maybe even stiffness on the front of the shoulder. I look at it as something wrong with the relationship between the deltoid and the lat. I understand the need to treat the rotator cuff, load the rotator cuff, but I also understand that the rotator cuff is ultimately paying the price for what the deltoid and the lat are not doing for the shoulder complex itself. That when these folks present with limited range of motion overhead, that getting in and treating, particularly the internal rotators, subscapularis can have a lot of value in restoring that range of motion and increasing tolerance to load long-term. However, that pattern recognition in my head is yes, where I'm going to go to first, but again, I can't get caught up too much in thinking this is what works with most people, this is what I'm gonna do no matter what. I have to be aware, I have to be humble that if it's not working for that patient in front of me, I need to go back and say what does the evidence say, what other treatments could I pursue, and also what input does the patient have into the equation of Are we maybe, yes, identifying the right cause, using the right treatment, but the patient expectation is that they can continue to do three to five hours a day of elite level CrossFit training on top of trying to move through the rehab of their shoulder. Those two things are always going to be at odds, and until I can start to incorporate more of the other arms of evidence-based medicine, I'm going to have a limited effect of how many people I can potentially help rather than most, I'm thinking again, how can I help that 99% of people?

10:40 – CURRENT BEST EVIDENCE

That moves really nice into making sure that we understand that yes, evidence-based medicine does include evidence. It includes what we would call and what's labeled as current best evidence. That's the second aspect of evidence-based medicine. I think we can be really hard on ourselves and social media here can make you feel like you're not doing a good job at keeping up with the research. Because the truth here, if we're being really intellectually honest, is no one can keep up with the research. There are 1.8 million scientific journal articles published every year. There are 35,000 articles being published every single week. It is impossible for any individual practitioner to read all of those. Ever. It doesn't matter if that was your full-time job. You would not be able to keep up with it. So what we tend to see is that we tend to focus on specialty areas in practice. And I think that's okay. I think that helps narrow our lens. And as long as we are finding a source bias here is I think we do a good job with hump day hustling. There are other great sources as well that do a good job of taking a bunch of research and condensing it in a way that can be absorbed, especially that is then kind of classified by specialty area. But understanding, it's really impossible here to always be up to date on the current best evidence. And just being up to date and reading new articles doesn't mean that that evidence necessarily has any value. We need to be mindful of that fact as well, that just because something new has been published doesn't mean it has value. This is a great example. This is an article. You may have seen this make the rounds on social media. The title is, One and Done, The Effectiveness of a Single Session of Physiotherapy Compared to Multiple Sessions to Reduce Pain and Improve Function in Patients with Musculoskeletal Disorders, a Systematic Review and Med Analysis. This paper was published just a couple days ago, so brand new off the press, right? We tend to associate newer with better in research, which is not always the case. And we tend to try to immediately incorporate articles like this into practice and make giant conclusions that often the paper does not support. Already there are people on social media posting this article and saying, look, physical therapy doesn't work. You should not go to physical therapy. There are folks posting this and saying, see, I told you manual therapy does suck. In some of these studies, in a systematic review, they did manual therapy. I told you it was worthless. Dry dealing does nothing. Spinal manipulation does nothing. Cupping does nothing. People who practice that are committing malpractice. They should be fined or lose their license or be in prison for doing dry needling. And all of those giant conclusions are being made from just this one article. They're being made in such a manner too that tells a lot of us who read a lot of research that they probably haven't actually read the full paper, right? They probably have just read the abstract. Because if we read the full paper, what this paper is really saying is that more physical therapy doesn't seem to help as long as all we care about measuring is pain. No information was given about any other outcome measure, strength, changes in vital signs, did people's blood pressure get better, did stuff like depression, anxiety get better, kinesiophobia, all these other different things that we can measure about a patient that we would expect to change with physical therapy intervention were not measured in any of these studies. And probably the most important thing that's missing from this study all the studies that it analyzes and pretty much every piece of physical therapy research is there's absolutely no information on what was actually done to these people in a way not only that the study could be replicated in the future and possibly validated, or that we have any idea of what was done. It's entirely possible that folks in some of these studies only got manual therapy, that some folks maybe, yes, got exercise, but how was it dosed? Did they test the sub-max lift? Did they train at or above 60% of that sub-max number to ensure that strength was actually happening? And the answer to all those questions usually is no. So it's really important we don't get deep down the evidence-based hole, knowing that for the most part, a lot of the research that comes out, even though there's a high volume of it, it's all quite weak and doesn't necessarily get incorporated into practice because it doesn't really help change and inform practice pretty significantly. Also from this study, Most of these patients had a spinal fracture, they had diagnosed osteoarthritis of the knee, or they had some sort of whiplash disorder of the neck. So kind of specialty populations that can't just really be extrapolated to the general population to say that physical therapy doesn't work. Nonetheless, people grab this article and they cite it. That kind of shows us an overlap between the sphere of clinical expertise and pattern recognition and evidence. I've written it right here on the whiteboard. That person, we would call that person a cherry picker. That person has a very shallow knowledge of the research and they're basically using the research to better inform their own dogma, right? That is not evidence-based medicine. That is just cherry picking research that supports your bias and ignoring the rest and not really taking a deep dive in the research. We have to remember as well that it is evidence based not evidence only that we have to act in the absence of evidence we actually have to do something with people and that we don't always have the best research to inform what we're currently doing in the practice that if we are treating a patient we're doing certain interventions they are making progress both according to their own input, their own goals, their subjective input, and also what we're measuring objectively, then by every way we can measure it to both us and to the patient, the patient is making satisfactory progress. And sometimes we don't always have research to support that. And that's okay. We need to also be intellectually honest, that some of the research we would like to see happen can't happen. A lot of research is either done on folks who are already healthy or it's done in a manner that whatever intervention is given can't potentially make that person either less healthy or more injured. We often see people in low back pain get some sort of treatment and then another group gets some sort of what we call usual care. Either way, somebody is getting some sort of intervention that is designed to improve their symptoms, not maybe theoretically worsen their symptoms. I would love to see research of folks lifting near or at their maximal one rep max potential with a deadlift, and I would love to see the outcomes of what happens with a group of people who lift with a focus on a brace neutral spine, what happens to people who intentionally flex their spine throughout the deadlift, what happens to people who intentionally extend their spine without a deadlift. Is that research ever likely to happen? No. Why? Because it would be really unethical to take a group of people who have nothing wrong with them and potentially cause them maybe a lifetime of debilitating injury just to try to prove a point from the research, and that is not the point of research. We have to be mindful that we're conducting research on human beings who have lives, who have families, who have jobs, and as much as we would like to see some specific lines of research come to fruition, we'll probably never see some of that because of the interventions the risk is simply too high, it probably won't pass review from something like an institutional review board at a university. So we need to be mindful as well of, yes, we're always trying to keep up with the current best evidence, but that doesn't mean it's actually the best, even if it is current, and it doesn't actually mean that it's research we would actually like to see happen, because it can be limited, again, by the ethical nature of actually conducting that research on living human beings. The bias here is being prone to being so far in this camp, and I've written here on the Venn diagram of being up in the ivory tower, of only doing things that has a lot of evidence to support it. Again, in the absence of evidence, we still need to do something with that patient. We still need to understand their condition. We still need to at least try some other evidence-based interventions to help that patient out. What many of you can't do is have a patient come in for evaluation and say, I don't have the current best evidence way to treat you, you'll need to leave now. That usually doesn't go very well. And we need to recognize as well, that patient is probably just gonna go see another provider anyways. Even if you were being very, very intellectually honest with them, that there was no evidence on treatment for their current condition, they're probably just gonna go somewhere else and get less evidence informed care there anyways. So for the best, it's probably that they stick with you for the long term.

19:14 – MATCHING PATIENT EXPECTATIONS & BELIEFS

Our final aspect is including patient expectations, values, input. I think this is the weakest area for all of us, of the thing we probably consider last, when maybe it should be what we consider first. This is forgotten far too often that the patient, again, is a living human being with thoughts, feelings, beliefs in front of us, and doing our best to match our interventions to their expectations, beliefs, values, is really, really important, and kind of tying in to the current best evidence, we have really good evidence to show that as well. If that patient comes in and says, hey, you know what, you may not remember, but you saw my husband about six months ago for some really bad low back pain. he was in so much pain, he was off work, and you did something with some needles and electricity or something, and anyways, he felt so much better, he was able to go back to work, he's back, he has no issues anymore, that's fantastic, and I was hoping, with my back pain, that we could try something like that. Now, of course, what that patient did not get from their husband is all the other stuff you probably, hopefully, did with that patient. But what they took away from it was that dry needling appeared to cure that person. And so, it's really helpful, I think, if you can match that expectation as much as possible. Yes, you could give that patient a 45 minute lecture on how dry needling for low back pain doesn't have as much evidence to support it as strengthening the spine and increasing cardiorespiratory fitness and reducing inflammatory diet and getting more sleep and managing your stress and you can go all the way down that pain neuroscience rabbit hole to the point at which maybe that patient doesn't come back to see you anymore Or if your long-term goal is to help that person and you know what is the most evidence-based way to help that person is to have their back get stronger, to help them with their current lifestyle habits, then probably the shortest point there, the shortest line between two points is a straight line between points A and B. It means that if you can just offer the dry needling, that's probably going to be the most beneficial thing, right? You're matching that patient expectation, belief, and value. Does it take time? Yes. It doesn't take a lot of time. Does it take a lot of resources? No, it doesn't. It costs a couple cents for the needles, right? And it lets us get to what we ultimately want to get to that person which is addressing their lifestyle, getting them loading, getting them moving if they're not currently moving, and overall changing their life for the better from both a physical fitness but also overall health and lifestyle perspective. And I think far too often We have an agenda, we have a bias with certain treatments where it doesn't matter who comes in the door. We can be on either side of the dogmatic perspective of everybody gets spinal manipulation, everybody gets dry needling without actually consulting the patient, do they want this or not? Are they open to another treatment? And what will ultimately get us to what we know works the best for most people, which is to get them moving more, get them stronger, get their heart rate up, address their lifestyle. So you can have many sessions of education only. You would think you're practicing in the most current evidence-based way, but we know we can't talk patients better. We actually need to do some stuff. And at the end of the day, I would challenge you that it's probably better if they do that stuff with you versus leaving your care and going to see another healthcare provider. That's another thing that articles like this do not address, of how much follow-up care did patients receive after they leave the study. Overwhelmingly, that is something that is not addressed. of if you do not provide the treatments that the patient wants, whether they want manual therapy, whether they want strengthening and you don't have the time or equipment to provide that, whatever they want, if you do not match those expectations and values, they're probably gonna go somewhere else. They're gonna spend healthcare dollars somewhere else. And that might be with a healthcare provider that's not as evidence-based as you are. So challenge yourself. Are you actually practicing within all of these three different spheres? Are you trying your best to keep up on the scholarly research, at least as it relates to the areas of practice that you're passionate about? Are you honest with yourself that you do have clinical pattern recognition that has value, but knowing that it does have its limitations and you're willing to adjust your treatment when things don't work? And are you combining your practice expertise and the current best evidence with patient expectations and values to ensure that the treatment you're offering is actually the treatment that the patient wants. So check yourself. Evidence-based medicine, are you actually doing it? I hope this was helpful. I hope you all have a fantastic weekend. Have fun with Gut Check Thursday. If you're gonna be at a live course, I hope you have a fantastic time. We'll see you next week. Bye, everybody.

OUTRO Hey, thanks for tuning in to the PT on Ice daily show. If you enjoyed this content, head on over to iTunes and leave us a review and be sure to check us out on Facebook and Instagram at the Institute of Clinical Excellence. If you're interested in getting plugged into more ice content on a weekly basis while earning CEUs from home, check out our virtual ice online mentorship program at ptonice.com. While you're there, sign up for our Hump Day Hustling newsletter for a free email every Wednesday morning with our top five research articles and social media posts that we think are worth reading. Head over to ptonice.com and scroll to the bottom of the page to sign up.

Dr. Alex Germano // #GeriOnICE // www.ptonice.com 

In today's episode of the PT on ICE Daily Show, Modern Management of the Older Adult lead faculty Alex Germano as she discusses the topic of medication management in older adults. She talks about the importance of screening for inappropriate medications and what to do when such medications are found. Medication management is a crucial component of falls prevention programs, as many older adults are on medications that may not be suitable for them. Alex emphasizes the need for clinicians to assess medications as part of their overall approach to fall prevention.

Take a listen to learn how to better serve this population of patients & athletes.

If you're looking to learn more about live courses designed to better serve older adults in physical therapy or our online physical therapy courses, check our entire list of continuing education courses for physical therapy including our physical therapy certifications by checking out our website. Don't forget about all of our FREE eBooks, prebuilt workshops, free CEUs, and other physical therapy continuing education on our Resources tab.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

00:00 - ALEX GERMANO

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the PT on Ice daily show brought to you by the Institute of Clinical Excellence. My name is Alex Germano, a member of the older adult division. Today, what we're going to be talking about is a question that came up at our course this weekend in Falls Church, Virginia. It was about how to handle inappropriate medication, how to screen for it, and what to do after you learn that your patient's taking a quote unquote inappropriate med for an older adult. The older adult division is really finishing off 2023 strong. We have eight more course offerings this year alone. This weekend in particular we're going to have Christina out in Fountain Valley, California. We're in New Jersey next weekend and Annapolis, Maryland the first weekend of November. Additionally, you can catch us in New York, Westmont, Illinois, Chandler, North Carolina, Spring, Texas, and Portland, Maine, before 2023 closes out. So we hope to see you out there. I wanted to expand on this topic a bit more.

01:31 - MEDICATION MANAGEMENT

It's all about medication management and how we encourage clinicians to look at medications and what do we do when we find an inappropriate medication. I feel really passionate about this topic and we really do As a component of our falls prevention programs, we need to be looking at meds, screening them, because a lot of our older adults are on a lot of medication that they should not be on. So, as part of the World Guidelines for Fall Prevention in Older Adults, medications are deemed as a domain that we need to assess. If you work in more acute settings, so maybe like acute care, skilled nursing facilities, home health, you likely have to do some sort of medication screening. You're asking about meds, they're in a system, the system or the EMR that you use actually may flag inappropriate medications already. I've heard that in the home health world that some of the it's more of the medication interactions that are being flagged versus like type of medication that we should be weary of. But if you're in outpatient settings, you may ask about medication intake on eval. but you might just write that down and then that's it. Even my, um, uh, EMR that I use and I'm working in an outpatient on wheel setting is just, you put in the meds and that's it. There's no followup. The system doesn't help me in any way. It's kind of on, on, it's my responsibility rather to perform some type of medication reconciliation, look at the meds, make sure they're on the appropriate ones. Okay. Now, if we have older adults on our caseload, we can't just ask about medications. We really need to double check some of these meds because they can have a huge impact on our patient's physical function, their lives. And it's absolutely part of our scope of practice because these medications can impact our patient's balance, their fatigue, their overall physical function and exercise tolerance. So it's definitely worth it to get familiar with some of these classes of medications. Older adults, it's important to know one, why is this a problem?

04:23 - IMPACT OF MEDICATION ON PATIENTS

Older adults handle medications differently. There's a few changes that occur with age. We have an increase in body fat and a decrease in our total body water, and this could change the half-life of certain drugs. The clearance of the drugs through the hepatic system or the renal system, so liver or kidneys, also changes as a result of age, and then if you have a disease process on top of it, that will affect medication clearance. Okay, so drugs aren't being, are not leaving our patients' bodies as well, so we often see higher levels of drugs circulating systemically, which could cause negative side effects. Now, it's not really our role to decide if my patient's hepatic function or renal function is appropriate for a certain medication. And, you know, that's not our job. We are trusting the medical providers out there prescribing medications and, you know, deciding what our patient needs and at what dosage. But I argue as people and I'm sorry, as medical providers who spend a lot more time with patients, we have a unique opportunity to visualize the impact of medications that affect our patients functionally. We have the ability to see our patients for many hours after they start using a medication, whereas doctors may not see them until months away. They might not be asking about the new medication until months after. They might not have a follow-up for a while. I mean, the current state of our medical system is that many people aren't even seeing their doctors for months and months in between. So if the patient isn't tolerating the medication or if we find that the medication isn't working for their lifestyle, and I'll explain that in a minute, we are the perfect provider to alert the other medical providers on the team about this situation. So first, how do we even know that a medication is inappropriate? What are we screening for? We will link and the Instagram post of the American Geriatric Society beers criteria. Okay. They have a 2023 edition that is available to be viewed. Usually we were seeing that the free one was like a few years back, but now the 2023 version is free and open access. We recommend becoming familiar with these classes of medications so that if they appear on your patient's medication list, you know that you are going to have kind of a red flag in your mind that you're going to want to monitor for any symptoms and really define if this medication is appropriate for the patient. This document organizes medications considered to be inappropriate for older adults or those with certain diseases. They organize medications that should be used with caution, any other potential drug interactions, or medications that need to be adjusted based on renal function. Again, not entirely our scope, but we will be aware because if we see symptoms in our patient, we're going to want to report that. It also gives you a rationale for use with each medication class. That's very helpful when you go to talk with the prescribing physician because it's important to give a rationale or to cite this criteria in order to kind of get them listening and get them to really take you seriously when you go to report a medication issue.

08:43 MEDICATION INTAKE CHALLENGES

Now it's not only important to screen the type of medication, but it's very important to screen how your patient takes their medication. This seems really the, I always say it seems dumb. It's really not dumb. It's very important, but you really wouldn't know how many issues there are with medication intake unless you were watching your patient take a lot of meds, which lucky for me, when I work in people's homes, I see a lot of things. Okay. Do, does your patient just use the pill bottle to pour out into their hand every morning to take their meds? Do they use a pill container? Do they use pill packs, which are those things that you can, um, order where all of their medication comes in like a nifty pack. They just rip it open and take it. It's great to ask your patient or their caregiver the current way that they take medications. And to ask if there's any barriers to that medication intake, again, I have a ton of privilege being in people's homes, seeing the way they take meds, and you'd be surprised how many people have barriers to taking medication. It could be cognitive, where they have to take medication three times a day, and they are used to only taking it once a day, or once at the end of the day. All right, hopefully we're back. I lost you for a second. And if your patient has to take medications more than once a day, that is going to increase the risk that something goes wrong. And if your patient happens to nap through med time, they miss a dose in the middle of the day, they don't have anyone there to remind them of that, that can also cause many problems. Some of our patients have difficulty with dexterity and their ability to pour medicines out from the pill container and into their hand and getting all of those small pills from their hand to their mouth. That's why you might find medication or pills kind of all over. Sorry, I'm going to ditch Instagram at this time. That's why you might find medications kind of all over the floor when you get to their house. They're having trouble getting small pills from their hand to their mouth. There's also many people that struggle maintaining, managing their meds and getting their pill containers to be filled appropriately. This is all great to screen for because these are all problems, physical therapy, but more so occupational therapy can help with. Occupational therapists are who I've personally leaned on to help with some of these dexterity problems, equipment problems, cognition issues, just because their scope of practice is a lot bigger and they are really experts at med management. So say now you have identified a problem medication. For example, my patient was given Xanax, which is a common benzodiazepine for daily management of high blood pressure. That is a super strange recommendation immediately caused a red flag in my mind because I know benzodiazepines are not supposed to be used for the beers criteria, but I connected the patient's past medical history with problems with this med. This patient has vestibular implications. has peripheral neuropathy and clinical levels of frailty so he's already quite weak and very unsteady so adding on a medication that increases false risk could be really dangerous now what i didn't do was i i didn't immediately call the doctor and complain about this prescription i let them i let the patient see if I let the patient trial the Xanax. He really was interested in doing so because the doctor said so, but I remained on high alert, monitoring for symptoms. They thought that because he had a lot of anxiety that the medication or Xanax would decrease his anxiety and drop his blood pressure. We didn't see a big change in blood pressure on subsequent visits. And he started to tell me really how woozy he felt in the morning and how he felt more very, very tired throughout the day after taking the medication. This is exactly when it's time for us to step in. Some of our patients may be on contraindicated meds and they may also feel fine and have no symptoms. They've taken them for years. They don't have a problem. If they're on a contraindicated med, however, it's just important we try to see if they have any concerning symptoms or just continuously ask or check in about them. So do they have fatigue or dizziness? At this point, we want to communicate with the prescribing physician regarding our concerns. I have sent letters with my patients to their doctor's appointments because sometimes it's hard to connect with the doctor. But I very often just call in to the nursing line to discuss the medication use. I let them know what I'm seeing in terms of symptoms and some of how the medication may be interacting between my patient's lifestyle. and the symptoms they have and their physical function. And then I kind of align that all with the recommendation based on the beer's criteria. I always cite it, like I said before, because it can just give you more power in this space. I have never, this is again, very personal, but I've never been met with a doctor that was not interested in exploring a different medication choice, or just at least talking through the symptoms and at least coming to a consensus of why the medication is appropriate for now. Many times the doctor is very willing to change or remove the medication. I think it's all about our approach here and not coming off a little too hot. We just have to come off with curiosity and just asking about, you know, just relaying symptoms, relaying data, relaying a rationale. And oftentimes I'm met with a really good response from the doctors. Now, it would also be wise to make some community connections with a local pharmacist or somebody who can help your patient with general medication questions, dosing questions, or if they're interested in getting a medication reconciliation. You may have to do some work to discover what pharmacists in the area offer. There may be virtual services available for certain patient populations. I'm thinking like the VA, for example, has some resources. There may also be private pharmacists helping with this. But again, this is very specific to your community. I would probably try to connect with that like small local pharmacy. Those folks are going to be great at having the time and the willingness to dive into medication reconciliations with your patients. So really, in summary, let's start leaning into our role as advocates for our patients' medication intake. If anything new gets added, or if your patient's been on medication for decades, it's part of our role to screen for symptoms of these meds, especially if they're on that inappropriate list for older adults. We can check on how our patient is able to take meds, see any barriers to taking medication. Remember, less doses per day is better for this population. Make sure we have people to communicate these problems with, that we get comfortable being advocates with physicians, that we get comfortable making connections with pharmacists in the area, so that we have a place to refer our patients if necessary. Getting patients off certain medications or getting them changed to a better medication well tolerated by older adults can truly have impacts on their life and function far more than any resistance training that we can give them. Deadlifts are definitely life changing, but if you can get off a scary medication that's making you feel dizzy and unsteady, then that can be far more powerful. So think about leaning into that space and we look forward to hearing how it goes. See you next Wednesday.

OUTRO

Hey, thanks for tuning in to the PT on Ice daily show. If you enjoyed this content, head on over to iTunes and leave us a review and be sure to check us out on Facebook and Instagram at the Institute of Clinical Excellence. If you're interested in getting plugged into more ice content on a weekly basis while earning CEUs from home, check out our virtual ice online mentorship program at ptonice.com. While you're there, sign up for our Hump Day Hustling newsletter for a free email every Wednesday morning with our top five research articles and social media posts that we think are worth reading. Head over to ptonice.com and scroll to the bottom of the page to sign up.

Dr. Mark Gallant // #ClinicalTuesday // www.ptonice.com

In today's episode of the PT on ICE Daily Show, Extremity Division Leader Mark Gallant delves into the various phases of rehabilitation for shoulder instability, providing valuable insights and recommendations. One key phase highlighted is centered around core stability, with Mark emphasizing the significance of incorporating core-related exercises into the rehabilitation program. Specifically, exercises like plank and plank rotations are mentioned as effective ways to engage the core muscles.

Furthermore, Mark discusses the importance of tailoring functional exercises to the individual's capabilities. He explains that if certain exercises, such as overhead press or full bench press, are too challenging, alternative exercises can be introduced. Examples provided include the landmine press, bottoms-up press, and push-up variations. The goal is to find a level of functional activity that the person can comfortably perform and then scale it accordingly. This approach not only helps to keep the individual motivated, but also allows them to track their progress towards their goals.

In addition to core stability, Mark discusses the significance of incorporating speed work into the rehabilitation program. As the patient progresses through the program, Mark suggests gradually introducing speed training. This involves training the tissues to tolerate different velocities of force through a full range of motion. Specific speed work exercises, such as concentric-eccentrics at different beats per minute (30, 50, 70, 90, 120), are mentioned. Additionally, activities like Turkish Get-Ups are highlighted for their ability to improve core resilience while working on shoulder stability.

Overall, Mark underscores the importance of integrating core stability exercises and speed work into the rehabilitation program for shoulder instability. These phases of rehabilitation play a crucial role in enhancing overall function and resilience of the shoulder joint.

Take a listen or check out the episode transcription below.

If you're looking to learn more about our Extremity Management course or our online physical therapy courses, check our entire list of continuing education courses for physical therapy including our physical therapy certifications by checking out our website. Don't forget about all of our FREE eBooks, prebuilt workshops, free CEUs, and other physical therapy continuing education on our Resources tab.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

00:00 - MARK GALLANT Alright, what is up PT on ICE crew? Dr. Mark Gallant here, lead faculty for the Ice Extremity Management Division. alongside Eric Chaconas and Lindsey Hughey. Coming at you, sorry, Lindsey, messing up that last name. Happened to me for years, now it's happening to you. Lindsey Huey, the other extremity management lead faculty. Coming at you here on Clinical Tuesday, wanna talk about atraumatic shoulder instability and traumatic shoulder instability, and what a good plan is if we're gonna treat these folks non-operatively. Before we get into that, I want to update on a few courses coming up. So I'll be in Woodstock, Georgia, November 11th. Cody Gingrich will be in Newark, California, December 2nd. And Lindsey Huey will be in Windsor, Colorado on December 9th. So a lot of opportunities, different regions of the country to check out ice extremity management. over the next couple months if you need to get in those CEUs for the year. So again, that's November 11th, Woodstock, Georgia. December 2nd will be in Newark, California, and December 9th will be in Windsor, Colorado. So definitely come meet us out on the road. 02:58 - CONSERVATIVE CARE FOR SHOULDER INSTABILITY So when we're looking at shoulder instability, it used to be that if someone had a traumatic shoulder instability, it was an automatic do not pass go, you're required to have surgery. And then the folks that had atraumatic shoulder instability, the people who were either born loose or worn loose, those folks, it was a maybe depending on how many dislocations, what was going on. But oftentimes a lot of these folks were getting filtered into surgical procedures. What we've now seen over the last couple of years, now that we're getting better with our rehab programs, is that conservative care and physical therapy can do quite well with both the traumatic shoulder instability and the atraumatic shoulder instability. So Anju Jaggi, who's been researching shoulder instability for years, came out with a trial this past year that recently released that showed in folks who had atraumatic shoulder instability, if they had conservative care versus if they had an inferior capsular shift, if they had an inferior capsular shift or an inferior capsular shift placebo procedure where they actually did nothing, that the folks who had the placebo treatment did just as well with physical therapy. So placebo surgery versus actual surgery, the placebo surgery with physical therapy did wonderful. We also have Ellen Shanley in 2019 who looked at what happens if people do have a traumatic shoulder instability event and they go through a full course of physical therapy and found that a majority of those folks were able to return to their sport the next year. So 85% of the individuals who had an instability event had good physical therapy and they were able to return to their sport. We do want to have some humility as physical therapists and allied health professionals that These folks were all individuals who did not have bony damage, so no bony bank hearts and no Hill Sachs lesions in these studies. If those things are not present, we can do quite well. So what is this actually going to look like? Margie Olds, who's another researcher who does a lot with shoulder instability, recently came out with a clinical commentary of how do we best do how do we best work with these folks? And we've been using it in clinic and seeing some really nice results. What the overall theme is, is we really want to get some of the local rotator cuff muscles really functioning well so that the lats, the pecs, the big movers don't have to take over. 04:13 - MUSCLE FIRING PATTERNS & PRIME MOVERS What we used to see is everyone would try to disinhibit the prime movers, the pecs, the lats. We saw this a lot in FAI treatment where we would try to disinhibit the TFL. What we realize now is this is very challenging, and what we actually wanna do is get the muscles that aren't firing as well to be more robust, more resilient, and fire well, and that will calm down the prime movers. So what we see is if we get the posterior cuff functioning well, if we get the subscapularis functioning well, that we will see the tone of the pecs and the lats calm down. The issue traditionally in physical therapy has been once we get to that stage, we don't move them on to more functional fitness, to more global resilience, to more general preparedness of the system. So what is this gonna look like in clinic? It's actually gonna look quite a bit like our tendinopathy progressions for rehabbing folks. So we're gonna start folks out with more isometric contractions, really getting the cortex and those muscles firing, progressing them more into a rehab dose with concentric eccentrics, then we're gonna focus on speed training, getting those tissues to tolerate speed and different velocities of force through a full range of motion, and then getting them back to their overall functional fitness. So what we specifically like to do in clinic is early on, first phase, they're first coming in to see you, they may or may not have been in a sling for a few weeks, Recommendation for slings and these folks now, if it's first time instability event, or if they've had that atraumatic shoulder instability and they had an instability event, is you can put them in a sling short term. There's no research that says it benefits them. There's no research that says it harms them. Put them in the sling. We don't want them in a sling for more than three weeks. If they feel like they need that to calm down, it is okay for a short period of time. We're going to get them in clinic and we're going to start with our isometrics. Two things that we specifically want to hit with our isometrics, if they can get into a 90-90 external rotation position, we want to hold that three sets, 30 seconds. If that person's willing to perform more, five sets of 45 seconds is even better. Whatever range of that external rotation they can get in, without pain going over a mild and whatever range they have access to, that's where we're going to perform that exercise. The other exercise we're going to perform to go after that subscapularis is a prone liftoff. So they're going to be on their stomach, they're going to put their hand behind their back as far as they can, and they're going to rotate into internal rotation to lift the wrist and hand off the back. If they can only get to the glute day one or just barely to their side, that's totally fine. When you're looking at this one, we want to be really careful that that person is actually internally rotating the shoulder. So this is not the time to turn around and type your notes. We want to be focused that they're getting true shoulder internal rotation. what a lot of people are going to do is they're going to wind up trying to extend their shoulder more or really dump through that scapula. So making sure that when they're doing that isometric, they're getting a pure shoulder internal rotation. We also want to start working on co-contraction of the shoulder. So where the delts, all the muscles are going. Oftentimes these people, although weight-bearing, closed-chain exercise is beneficial, early on it may be too much for the system. We're gonna start them out with a side-lying arm bar. So our big three exercises that we've found to be very beneficial are 90-90 ER, three sets to 30 seconds, if they can tolerate five for 45, that's even better, that prone lift-off isometric, and then a side-lying arm bar for that same period of time. Once they're able to demonstrate that they can do these exercises well, then we're going to, that they can do them well with pain less than a, than a three out of 10 or keeping it in that mild symptoms, they can tolerate the entire timeline. Then we're going to move them into a more of our rehab dose program where we're going to start getting some, some resistance through the system and getting, getting into some actual concentric eccentric repetitions. we really like to do the same motions. So we're going to stand them up, have a, have either a meter band, or if you have a cable pulley system, their hand is going to be behind their back. The cable will be to the opposite side, and they're going to have to do that lift off with resistance. We want them to hit somewhere in the 15 to 20 rep, keeping those symptoms mild for three sets. that will get their subscap, their internal rotation, again, making sure they're not solely substituting extension in that motion. Then we're gonna get them back, either on the table or in quadruped, hitting their 90-90 ER. This time we're gonna hit a light weight, two and a half to five pounds, and then we're gonna do, again, 15 to 20 reps. Can they tolerate that high volume, 15 to 20 reps? keeping their symptoms mild, that would be good for that motion. Then we're going to progress them now instead of doing their open chain arm bar, we're going to see how they can tolerate planks. So getting them into that plank position and having them do plank taps. We can modify this depending on the person by either widening their feet to get a better base of support or putting them onto a box. So for phase two, again, we want to hit that lift off, this time with either a band or a cable resistance, 15 to 20 reps, three sets. We're going to hit our 90-90 ER, two and a half to five pounds, if they can tolerate that, keeping symptoms mild. Again, higher on those repetitions. And then we're going to start working towards our plank taps. As they progress through this phase, then we're gonna start working on speed. 10:30 - SPEED & METRONOME TRAINING What we wanna look at with the speed is how much can that person tolerate velocity? The metronome is one of the best tools we can use to get this going. We've seen this a lot in the tendinopathy research. Margie Old is the first person that we're aware of that really laid out in a peer-edited journal article, clinical commentary, how exactly they're doing this with shoulder instability patients in clinic and what they're doing is they're starting them out 30 beats per minute on the metronome and they're going to do neutral internal rotation with a band or a cable column at that 30 beats per minute then as they can tolerate that well they're going to progress to 50 beats per minute then to 70 beats per minute, 90 into 120, which is moving pretty fast. If they're doing internal rotation at 120 beats per minute, it's pretty rapid. As they can tolerate that better, they're going to go out, put a towel under their arm, 45 degree angle of abduction, hitting those same 30, 50, 70, 90, 120 beats per minute, and then progressing to a 90-90 position, hitting that 30, 50, 70, 90, 120 beats per minute. Same with external rotation for that posterior cuff, 30 beats per minute in the neutral, progressing to 50, to 70, to 90, to 120. Then looking at can they do it at 90 degrees of external rotation or 90 degrees of front plane external rotation, 30, 50, 70, 90, 120. and then progressing up to 135 similar to that face pull type of motion. Again, 30, 50, 70, 90, 120. So really systematically progressing the speed training the same way you would with your loaded resistance exercise. Now, the other thing that we're gonna do during that phase three, we're gonna start progressing the plank taps. Can they now do a plank with a rotation going on to their side. So they've got to get a little bit movement through that closed chain exercise. And we love to add Turkish get up variations. So one thing that we see with a lot of, especially atraumatic shoulder instability folks, is that they're going to have a, their core is not going to be as resilient as it could be. So we often see a lot of that anterior and posterior trunk dysfunction leading to maybe the lats and the pecs having more myofascial tone and if we can work on that while we're getting the shoulder more resilient that can be a nice beneficial step. So what we'd like to do is do the first part of the Turkish get up or doing a whole Turkish get up so that we're getting some shoulder stability and we're getting a big massive core engagement. And then the final phase, phase four, where historically A lot of PTs have stopped. Oftentimes these folks are out of pain now, so compliance becomes more challenging. Really encouraging these folks that we want to get them fully back to everything that we're doing and build as much resilience to their shoulder. This is where you're going to really work on your vertical pulls, your horizontal pulls, so your pull-ups, your rows, your vertical presses, your overhead press, your horizontal press, your bench press, and then really getting into dynamic speed work or sports training. So snatches, push jerks, push press, burpees, things that are going to be more functional and have some velocity to them are really good here. Your kipping pull-ups. What we want to encourage is we're not going to only start the functional phase after they've gone through phase one, phase two, phase three. So phase one, again, being more of your isometrics, phase two being your slow concentric eccentrics, oftentimes starting at a higher volume, those 15 to 20 reps and progressing to more load. Phase three, working on your speed work, 30 beats per minute, 50 beats per minute, 70, 90, 120 beats per minute. Working on your core related exercises, with shoulder stability. We're not going to only do functional exercise after that's all done. We're going to find what is the level of that functional exercise that they can do. So if they can't overhead press, can they landmine press? If they can't do a full bench press with the barbell, can they do a bottoms-up press? Can they do a push-up variation? What is the level of functional activity that they can do? We're gonna scale it down to that level so that the person is, they've got that goal in mind. They are always aware of what they're getting back to. They're doing something that's getting all of the tissues moving. Oftentimes it's a little more fun for them. So we're keeping that as part of the program. as early as irritability allows us. So again, overall for shoulder instability, what we now know is for both traumatic and atraumatic, as long as there's not a Hill Sachs or a bony bank heart or severe trauma related changes that we do quite well in conservative care and physical therapy, we want to have a systematic program starting out with your isometric exercises that give both the posterior cuff and the anterior cuff really going. 16:01 - PROGRESSING TO CONCENTRIC-ECCENTRICS Progressing those to our concentric eccentrics, typically starting out with a higher volume. When they can do that, then we're going to progress to our speed work with our concentric eccentrics, 30 beats per minute, 50 beats per minute, 70, 90, 120, making sure we've got some activities that also engage the core, like our Turkish get ups, our closed chain exercises with those plank and plank rotations, and then getting into our more functional fitness or whatever their sport related activity is. Hope this helped overall. Love to hear anything in the comments. We would love to chat and engage about this. Hope you all have a great Tuesday in clinic and hope to see you on the road soon.

OUTRO Hey, thanks for tuning in to the PT on Ice daily show. If you enjoyed this content, head on over to iTunes and leave us a review and be sure to check us out on Facebook and Instagram at the Institute of Clinical Excellence. If you're interested in getting plugged into more ice content on a weekly basis while earning CEUs from home, check out our virtual ice online mentorship program at ptonice.com. While you're there, sign up for our Hump Day Hustling newsletter for a free email every Wednesday morning with our top five research articles and social media posts that we think are worth reading. Head over to ptonice.com and scroll to the bottom of the page to sign up.

Dr. April Dominick // #ICEPelvic // www.ptonice.com

In today's episode of the PT on ICE Daily Show, #ICEPelvic faculty member April Dominick continues with part 2 of her series on postpartum depression. In this episode, she discusses how rehab providers can screen for postpartum depression. She also offers tips for communicating with clients who we suspect have postpartum depression with scripted suggestions and responses to support a client in the moment.

Take a listen to learn how to better serve this population of patients & athletes.

If you're looking to learn more about our live pregnancy and postpartum physical therapy courses or our online physical therapy courses, check our entire list of continuing education courses for physical therapy including our physical therapy certifications by checking out our website. Don't forget about all of our FREE eBooks, prebuilt workshops, free CEUs, and other physical therapy continuing education on our Resources tab.

Are you looking for more information on how to keep lifting weights while pregnant? Check out the ICE Pelvic bi-weekly newsletter!

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

00:00 - APRIL DOMINICK What's up PT on Ice Daily Show fam? My name is Dr. April Dominick, and today I'll discuss how to screen for postpartum depression and share tips and scripted phrases that you can practice saying to get comfortable supporting someone you suspect has postpartum depression. In the ice pelvic division, updates and course offerings are going to be that we are on the road October 13th and 14th in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And your next opportunity after that will be with myself and Dr. Christina Previtt. We will be tackling all things pelvic health in the Pacific Northwest in Corvallis, Oregon, and that's gonna be October 21st and 22nd. So head over to PTOnIce.com and grab your seat. Our final courses for the fall are still listed, and you still have a few chances to catch us live. So in episode 1553, that was the last episode I did of this postpartum series, depression series, we talked about prevalence rates, we defined postpartum depression, and we talked about risk factors for postpartum depression. Since then, I ran across another systematic review from 2017 that cited worldwide greater than 10% of pregnant and immediate postpartum women are having depressive episodes, greater than 10%. That number is still astounding to me. While screening for PPD or postpartum depression is one thing, if someone is sharing that they're struggling and you sense they have some signs and symptoms of postpartum depression, we as providers may feel empathy for the person in front of us, but we may be at a loss of words for how to communicate that with another individual. So in the second half of today's episode, I'll go through a few key phrases that you can build off of in response to someone you suspect having postpartum depression, with the ultimate goal, of course, being referring them to the appropriate mental health provider and or medical provider. 00:00 - SCREENING FOR POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION But first, let's chat about how we can screen for postpartum depression. Just a quick definition of postpartum depression, it is going to be someone with moderate to severe depressive symptoms. That can arise around post childbirth whenever that occurs, all the way up to four weeks post childbirth. And then that can also last for up to a year or more postpartum. Postpartum depression, it affects daily functions. So someone has some struggles with chores or daily childcare tasks compared to the baby blues, which is a more mild form of depression. Postpartum depression does require medical intervention as well. So pregnancy and postpartum, as we all know, is a time of psychological vulnerability, especially in those first few weeks when there's so much transition happening after delivery, which is why early identification and screening for treatment is key. So we want to ask the questions, whether that's verbally or in a paper or outcome measure form. So ACOG recommends that patients be screened for postpartum depression at a few certain timeframes. At the first OB visit, at 24 to 28 weeks gestation, and there was a study in 2013 by Wisner et al that suggested for a majority, depression begins prior to delivery. So this is why we have those checkpoints during pregnancy. And then the other times that they suggest that we screen for postpartum depression is at the comprehensive postpartum visit, whether that's at six weeks, four weeks, eight weeks. And then also I loved this at pediatric visits well into the first postpartum year, because pretty much after that six week visit, um, most women are not seen by their OB until the next year for their annual. So those are some timeframes that we as PTs are likely seeing these individuals maybe during pregnancy, postpartum, so we can also help with this screening process. In terms of outcome measures, there are a number of outcome measures out there that are used to screen for postpartum depression. We are going to go over two of the most common evidence-based tools. The first is the Edinburgh Postpartum or Postnatal Depression Scale, and then the Patient Health Questionnaire. They're both two scales that are recommended by ACOG and by the Postpartum Support International Group, which is a really cool resource, and we'll talk about it more in my next episode, but it's going to be a resource available for those in that perinatal mental health space period kind of combines those two things. So the two outcome measures, the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale and the Patient Health Questionnaire, we love them because they are available in many languages and they are quick to administer and they're free. Who doesn't love free stuff? They are validated also for the perinatal population. which I think is something important that while we can give someone a major outcome measure that's for general depression, it's even really more helpful to have someone go through an outcome measure that is specific to the time and space that they're in. And then scoring, the lower the score for both of the outcome measures is going to indicate lower or more mild depressive symptoms. The cutoff value of 11 or higher out of 30 for the Edinburgh scale is going to maximize the combined sensitivity and specificity. 07:21 - THE EDINBURGH POSTNATAL DEPRESSION SCALE (EPDS) Let's go through a couple of differences, though, between what we'll call the EPDS for the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. So for the EPDS, it's got 10 questions. And not only does it address the depressive symptoms and suicidal thoughts, but it also has an anxiety component of perinatal mood disorders. And that anxiety piece is likely what contributes to it being the most widely used screening tool. The other interesting thing I came across is that the EPDS is actually reliable and a valid measure of mood in the supporting partner, whether it is a male or a female, which I think is great. Example of items from the EPDS. are as follows. The person is going to be answering whether or not they have been so unhappy that they have been crying, the thought of harming myself has occurred to me, or I have felt scared or panicky for no good reason. Moving to the patient health questionnaire, that's going to be nine questions that assess for the depression component. It does include an item about suicidal ideation, but it doesn't have an anxiety component that the EPDS does. Instead, it includes some of the somatic symptoms of major depressive disorders, such as fatigue, sleep disturbance, changes in weight, and these reflect what is also on the DSM categories. Here's an aside for all these outcome measures. So in my research, I ran across a study from 2017 by Ukatu et al, reviewing about 36 articles that used PPD screening tools, and they investigated the outcome measures and their ability to detect maternal depression. So two of the conclusions from this review that looked at a bunch of articles that use PPD were, one, is that they found no recommendation could be made about the most effective tool for detecting PPD, which is, I guess the good side of that is you can use, there are a lot of tools out there and they will likely be capturing the depression component. 10:28 - WHEN IS THE ONSET OF POSTPARTUM DEPRESSION? The other thing that they mentioned was there's no recommended time duration in which to screen patients, again, from all of those reviews that they studied. So one of the reasons they suggest that the timing can be difficult to recommend is that For certain outcome measures that are administered at the two-week mark, the outcome measure may not be able to differentiate symptoms of baby blues, which commonly ends after about two weeks post-birth, versus postpartum depression that can have a much later onset. And that can be anywhere from post-birth up to three to four weeks for onset. So I just thought that was an interesting find from the screening side of things. But the two that we talked about are the EPDS and the patient health questionnaire. So outside of administering those two outcome measures, when it comes to screening, you'll want to also use the power of your ears and your voice to catch anything that may have been missed in those outcome measures. Remember, some people won't necessarily be honest on the outcome measures. They may be less likely to share that they're struggling due to the feelings of shame, abandonment, maybe they have a lot of guilt about not being enough for their baby, or they may not even realize their current emotional state, even when asked right on the outcome measure. So be an active listener. Ask the person How are you doing? But don't stop there. If you get a general response that's like, I'm good or I'm okay, I think you should ask it again. Say, I'm going to ask you again, how are you doing? Then you should also be on the lookout for words or phrases that the person may use in their conversation, like dark, heavy, blue. And then we certainly also want to have screening out postpartum psychosis in the back of our minds. So hearing voices that tell me to drop my baby, if you hear that, that is very serious. It is a medical emergency. This postpartum psychosis is going to affect about one to 3% of moms. So that's how to screen postpartum depression. How do we have the difficult conversation? How do we navigate the intricacies? when we suspect the person in front of us may be suffering from some postpartum depression. A few general tips. You'll want to listen with compassion and empathy, particularly to the non-physical symptoms. As neuroscientist, Dr. Andrew Huberman said, says, use your body to shift the mind. An individual that's not functioning at their usual physical capacity, or is in pain, or I don't know, recovering from a human body coming out of their body, or they're lacking sleep, right? This does not only affect the physical body, but it's also going to affect the brain and the soul. So it is within our scope to chat about this as their mental status is linked to their physical healing and recovery and management of their condition. As a provider, ignoring their mental status is not an option. You'll also want to avoid being dismissive. So someone may have been very vulnerable with you and they shared that, you know, they're just struggling. They're struggling to find the energy. They're struggling to feed themselves. And then you as a provider, like, okay, moving on to range of motion of your leg, like absolutely not. That is not acceptable. So avoid being dismissive, hear them out. Then remind them that addressing their mental health now will be so much more beneficial than months or a year down the line. And then mentioning that you'd like to take an integrative approach and refer them to a medication provider or their OB or a PCP or a psychiatrist, right? We'll talk in the upcoming podcast, but medications like antidepressants are also a good treatment option for them. So what are some specific responses that you can practice or just have in the back of your head when you suspect someone may be experiencing postpartum depression? I don't know about you, but especially in the public health space, I tend to get, you know, we talk about intimate subjects and there are some times that someone will share something with me. And I mean, I am feeling so much for them, but I have a hard time putting into words the quote right thing to say. And I'm not saying that these things, these scripting phrases that I'm going to give you are the right thing, but it's something to go off of if you're just struggling in that way. 16:43 - HIGHLIGHT & CELEBRATE So the first phrase, and I think it's probably one of the most impactful, your feelings are validated. I'm in a group text with a few moms and one of them, they've all been recently pregnant and recently postpartum. Some of them have been going through some tough times when it comes to emotions. And one of them said, my OB put her hand on my arm and told me how brave I am for asking for help and really realizing that I need to be my best self for my family. And she told me I could call her office anytime to talk to her. And that meant so much. So just letting the person in front of you know your feelings are validated. Number two, early identification. So if you've got someone who is pregnant and you suspect that they're going through some tough times from an emotional standpoint, you can say, you don't have to feel this way for the next eight months of your pregnancy. There are resources available. Number three, highlight and celebrate the person's abilities. Say, look at what you're doing. All of this is very impressive given the circumstances and all the stress that you've been under. Bring it back to a potential or current bond with the baby. And you know, if the baby's in the room with you, even better, have a little side conversation before the appointment starts with the baby. When I point to you, look at your mother with loving eyes. I'm just kidding. But definitely show the person or show the mother, look at how you're learning what your baby needs, right? For comfort, for snuggles, for food, for diaper changes. So remind her of the role she's playing. And then number four, remind her your health is a priority just as much as the baby's is. So often, as soon as labor and delivery is over, maybe we have that six week, postpartum visit, the rest of the visits are not for the mother, they're for the child. So just reminding her that her health is definitely linked and just as important to her baby's health. And then number five, say this happens. There's a fine line though between normalizing that this happens a lot, but also it's not so normal that you don't need to address, that we can't have you not address it. So there was a resource that is, was in the deep dive realms of the ACOG website and the title, the title just gives me chills. It says, how do you talk about mental health conditions in a strength-based way? Love that. Here were their suggestions. Say mental health conditions are common. Mental health conditions are like medical conditions or like diabetes. They need to be treated. Medical conditions are, or mental health conditions are treatable. And that reminding the client that the aim is that every woman who is pregnant or postpartum or every person who's pregnant and postpartum is screened for mood disorders. They also recommended that their clinical support office staff needs to be skilled in talking to patients in a strength-based way, as they may be the first to encounter a postpartum person. And I wholeheartedly believe that because the face of the first person you encounter can really and truly change the trajectory of your care. So let's sum things up. If you're a healthcare provider, interacting with someone In the pregnant and postpartum period, you are in a unique position to be screening for postpartum depression. We covered using two outcome measures such as the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale or the Patient Health Questionnaire. If we suspect PPD, we as rehab providers can be confident in having these early conversations early on and during the client's pregnancy and then again in the early postpartum period. Using tips and verbal responses, the scripting phrases that I mentioned, can help support and validate the client's concerns in a strength-based way. Reminding them that their health is equally as important as their baby's. Reminding them of what they've accomplished under these incredible circumstances. And telling them, hey, this condition is treatable, just like we would treat a shoulder injury. This awareness can decrease stigma, it can normalize screening and detection, and encourage women to discuss any mental health concerns with you. Join us next time for specific treatments, resources, and ways to support a person with postpartum depression. Cheers, y'all.

OUTRO Hey, thanks for tuning in to the PT on Ice daily show. If you enjoyed this content, head on over to iTunes and leave us a review and be sure to check us out on Facebook and Instagram at the Institute of Clinical Excellence. If you're interested in getting plugged into more ice content on a weekly basis while earning CEUs from home, check out our virtual ice online mentorship program at ptonice.com. While you're there, sign up for our Hump Day Hustling newsletter for a free email every Wednesday morning with our top five research articles and social media posts that we think are worth reading. Head over to ptonice.com and scroll to the bottom of the page to sign up.

Dr. Paul Killoren // #LeadershipThursday // www.ptonice.com

In today's episode of the PT on ICE Daily Show, Dry Needling division leader Paul Killoren emphasizes the importance of using e-stim in conjunction with dry needling. This combination provides validation and helps the practitioner determine if the needle is in the muscle. Furthermore, using e-stim with needles can reduce post-treatment soreness, making it more approachable for patients. Paul also highlights research supporting the use of e-stim in various treatment goals, such as pain modulation, neuromuscular changes, tissue nourishment, nervous system accommodation, and somatosensory reorganization. Paul always recommends using e-stim after inserting the needle, as it offers multiple benefits for both the practitioner and the patient.

Take a listen to the podcast episode or read the full transcription below.

If you're looking to learn more about courses designed to start your own practice, check out our Brick by Brick practice management course or our online physical therapy courses, check out our entire list of continuing education courses for physical therapy including our physical therapy certifications by checking out our website. Don't forget about all of our FREE eBooks, prebuilt workshops, free CEUs, and other physical therapy continuing education on our Resources tab.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

00:00 PAUL KILLOREN

Good morning. PT on Ice daily show streaming worldwide on Instagram and YouTube. I'm your host for the day, Paul Killoren, of the dry needling division for ice, and I'm hijacking the mic. Normally on Thursday for the PT on ICE Daily Show, we have practice management, we have leadership stuff, really inspiring messages from Jeff Moore, from Alan himself. I'm hijacking the mic and calling this Technique Thursday. We're talking needles on a Thursday. dry needling division. Before I dive in, some pretty exciting updates. Our very first advanced dry needling course is going down January 12th to 14th. And we actually have a registration page up and live that has a little work to do. But the course is going to be ready and the very first advanced dry needling course for ice will be in Washington in Bellingham in January. And then having the upper, lower, and advanced course that will form the ICE dry needling certification. So again, our division's not even a year old. We have had our upper and lower dry needling courses running across the country for almost 12 months. And this will be that final piece. So really exciting stuff coming out of the dry needling division. But I'm going to dive in, dive right in today.

01:58 - THE NEEDLE IS IN, NOW WHAT?

And the title of today's episode is my needle is in, now what? And honestly, when I framed this topic, when I started to prep and form this discussion, in my mind, I pictured that novice clinician, I mean, you're on your first dry needling course, you're doing vastus medialis, vastus lateralis, glute medius multifidus, you learn the technique, the palpation, the anatomy, you're looking for a bony contact, you get super excited, just like, oh, sweet. There's the bone. That's what I was looking for. Now what? So really, this is a question I've answered consistently on level one or kind of first dry needling courses for the last decade. But again, when I started to prep for this episode, there's layers to this. And really, whether you're a novice, an intermediate, or even an experienced dry needler, Sometimes it's worth having this discussion of, our needle is in. Like first we learn how to do it safely, how to do it specifically, but our needle is in, now what? And to fully acknowledge, depending on who you listen to, how you were trained, the answer of, now what, will be very different. Because first of all, there's that technical spectrum of, well, now we piston the needle, or now we twist the needle. Now we use e-stim. But even there, let's say there's a dosage spectrum of, okay, if I piston how many times? If I twist it for how long? If I just leave it there, what duration? If I use e-stim, what parameters? So again, I thought this would be a pretty easy, a pretty short, quick-hitting topic, but there's layers to it. And first of all, let's say that there is significant value to my needle is in a very specific target. Again, safety always comes first when you learn dry needling, but I think we also can acknowledge one of the benefits, one of the advantages of the needle as a clinical tool is we can be sniper precise. We can put a needle in semi-membranosis, in multifidus. You know, this is not necessarily a technique of broad stroking manual therapy of like, we're doing the lateral hip, we're doing the low back, we're doing the SI region. To some degree, even a manipulation, we're saying, you know, we're not joint specific necessarily. We're kind of giving input neurophysiologically to joint receptors and there's more of a regional and global response to that. With a needle, I think we can just say, first of all, I have a needle in semimembranosus.

04:46 - THE BLESSING & THE CURSE OF NEEDLING

I mean, The blessing and the curse of needling is it keeps us honest, especially if we use e-stim. When you get that motor response, the needle's telling you, it's like, you know what, Paul? You're not in semi-membranosis. You missed. You're either like, you drifted subcutaneously or you missed superficially in tendinosis, you missed deep in adductor magnus. So first of all, I don't wanna just like completely glaze over the fact that your needle is in a very specific target is a big part of the equation. I mean, for ice, for our dry needling, we teach safety for sure, but you as like highly educated, skilled clinicians, teaching you all how to be safe with a needle happens pretty quick. So our, our goals, our mantra with dry needling are be safe, be specific. Again, that's, that's a big part of using this needle as a tool and then be strategic. And that's what I want to go to today, because again, the topic here is, my needle is in, now what? And again, let's acknowledge that it depends, not just on how you're trained, it depends on that patient on the table, on what is your goal for that session, what is the acuteness or the chronicity of the condition. So by no means do I want to make this sound easy, but I am going to give a very specific answer to this question. And again, I have previous training, I know the narratives out there of the needle is in, now we twist it for two minutes. Or the needle is in, now we just let it sit there. Or we pissed in it. And again, there are narratives, there is research, and there is benefit to each of those approaches. But I'm telling you that those aren't the answers. Again, I have a pretty specific answer that I'm going to get to But I think I'll torture you just a little bit longer by setting the stage. And really, I'm going to flashback, not even talking needling, I'm going to flashback to my DPT education. I went to Regis University, graduated in 2010. So what attracted me to Regist was Dr. Tim Flynn, Julie Whitman, Jim Elliott. I mean, big manual therapy specialists, but researchers of our day. So we finally, you know, you're year one, year two, you finally get to that musculoskeletal management, you finally get to learn some manipulations from Tim Flynn and Julie Whitman. And you know, if you don't remember how you started with manipulations, it wasn't good. The hands were not skilled, like it wasn't crispy right out of the gate. So you spend a half day, you practice on your classmates at home, and finally you're like, man, I'm starting to feel like my hands have some skill. So imagine you are there, you're learning manipulations, your hands are feeling more skilled. Imagine how disheartening it was for me, and I remember this day, when Dr. Tim Flynn stands up and says, you know what, you can teach a monkey how to manip. And I mean, He's overgeneralizing, but the point is still true. He's like, you can teach a monkey how to manipulate. It's really how, like when to manipulate. Um, I guess how to apply it. There is skill there. We'll acknowledge that. But then it's what you do afterwards. So, I mean, that, that hit for me. And first of all, it's like, Oh man, there are manipulating chimps out there that are doing this better than I am. And again, that wasn't his point, but. But the point remains knowing when to use it, how to use it to some degree, but then the dosage and the follow through, the aftermath is really the true magic. That applies for dry needling as well. Again, can we teach a monkey how to put a needle randomly into tissue? For sure. Like there is not much needle skill to getting a needle interstitially, into muscle tissue. There is a skill to being more specific, and there is a skill to answering the dosage question, now what? And I'll tell you now, without further ado, we have our needle or needles in. The answer to now what is e-stim. And you know, I don't, you know, I kind of do the, you know, I was trained previously, I know the research, the narrative and the benefit to all the other approaches, but the answer today is eSTEM. And honestly, what makes me so confident in that is first of all, I have my own empirical anecdotal, like I was not using eSTEM, now I am. I have that sample size to make me confident. But what makes me more confident And it's not even just the research, I'll touch on that in a minute. But what makes me more confident is knowing or hearing that some of the other dry needling educators or other dry needling institutions in the US and worldwide that previously were saying there's no additional value to e-stim with dry needling, or we're essentially just doing tens through a needle, they're now starting to use e-stim. And whether they use it the same way we do with ice, whether they explain it the same way, what they're saying is there's value to e-stim. And here's what the research says, is our needles are in, now what? E-stim is the answer for almost any treatment intent. First of all, I mean, if you haven't taken one of our upper or lower courses, we teach e-stim right out of the gate. I mean, day one, we learn how to use the unit, we get muscles to pump, Again, there's high value when you first learn dry needling to using e-stim because it keeps you honest. Are you in that muscle? Are you not? But that immediately gives you some, I guess some validation, like I'm saying, but some grace. Because first of all, what we know is that if we use e-stim with our needles versus not, any sort of post-treatment, post-needle soreness will be much less. So there's a very, um, a very real like patient approachability aspect to using e-stim. And there's research to support that.

12:33 - E-STIM DOES IT BETTER

But beyond that, what if our treatment goal is not pain modulation? What if it's neuromuscular changes? E-stim does it better. What if our goal is, tissue nourishment, blood flow, maybe venous return, lymphatic activation, edema evacuation. What if our goal is that? ESTIM does it better. What if our goal is nervous system accommodation? Or what if it's getting the biggest, baddest neuropeptide or enkephalin, endorphin, but our pain modulating up top cortical response. What if that's our goal? eSTIM does it better. What if we're talking pain science and there's some somatosensory reorganization, there's some homuncular smudging that we would like to remap. We'd like to give a very profound and precise input to that homunculus, to that somatosensory cortex. eSTIM does it better. So again, these are, these are research based answers. Very real research that says group A just got needles, whether that was pistoning or placing or what have you, and then group B got e-stim. What was the difference? At this point, e-stim does it better. And really, that is the long and short of this episode. And again, I think to not minimize the impact of you have to learn how to put a needle in safely, There is significant value, especially with the needle, to say, my needle is in, very precisely, fill in the blank. My needle is in peroneus brevis. My needle is in extensor hallucis longus. My needle's in glute minimus. There is significant value to the precision of that tool. But that's only half the battle. My needle is in, excellent. That took some training, that took some some skill honestly that took some three years of doctorate level like anatomical training and education and awareness that took a lot to say my needle just contacted I guess the external ileum like we are at the depth and the location of glute minimus that's awesome that you checked the box that is step one but if we don't fill in the then what you're leaving a lot on the table clinically And if you just logged on, the answer is eSTEM. So again, I know I see some of the names jumping on. Thanks for joining. I'm preaching to the choir, to some of you, because you've taken our upper or lower courses. We immediately talk about how to use eSTEM, the research behind eSTEM, and then we use it all weekend on the course. And it's a different experience. I think eSTEM makes dry needling a little bit classier. We can be a little bit more classy with our needles when we use E-Stim. We can also be a little bit more dialed, a little more tactical with our treatment intent. Again, is your goal pain modulation? Is it neuromuscular changes? Is it blood flow? Is it just fluid dynamics of moving fluid? Excuse me. So that's the answer for today. Again, jumping on on a Thursday for a Technique Thursday. We're talking dry needling. And the question was, needle is in, now what? And the answer was Easton. Excuse me. So if that prompts any questions, again, this is a big piece of our curriculum. Drop some comments in the thread. Hit us up on Instagram. This is on YouTube as well, so you can throw some comments there. Again, my name is Paul Killoren of the dry kneeling division for ice. If you hopped on late, We are launching our advanced dry needling course in January. That'll be the final piece of our upper dry needling, lower dry needling, and then advanced for the certification. If you're in Washington State, that'll be the third course of the series to allow us to dry needle as far as getting 75 hours. But if there's anyone out there who is trained in needling, who is uncertain about using eStim or the benefit of eStim, first of all, I'll just encourage you to try it. Like, there's value there to hearing your patients explain the difference of using eStim or not. Otherwise, we have an online course if you already have the needle skills, you know how to put your needle in, but then what? If you don't know how to use the eStim, there is an online course through ICE as well, eStim plus needles. That's all I've got for today. Thanks for logging on. I'm incredibly proud of myself. This is my most concise, my most brief podcast topic, but it's an easy one for me. So if you're out there saying, what do we do after we put the needle in? I'm not saying there's not value in twisting or pistoning or just static needling. There's blood flow changes. There's neuromuscular changes. There's tissue disruptive like inflammatory cascade responses to all of that but the answer is e-stim and With that I'm logging off folks. Thanks for joining PT on ice daily show. See you next time

OUTRO Hey, thanks for tuning in to the PT on Ice daily show. If you enjoyed this content, head on over to iTunes and leave us a review and be sure to check us out on Facebook and Instagram at the Institute of Clinical Excellence. If you're interested in getting plugged into more ice content on a weekly basis while earning CEUs from home, check out our virtual ice online mentorship program at ptonice.com. While you're there, sign up for our Hump Day Hustling newsletter for a free email every Wednesday morning with our top five research articles and social media posts that we think are worth reading. Head over to ptonice.com and scroll to the bottom of the page to sign up.

Dr. Julie Brauer // #GeriOnICE // www.ptonice.com

In today's episode of the PT on ICE Daily Show, Modern Management of the Older Adult faculty member Julie Brauer emphasizes the importance of executing obstacle courses in a specific, dynamic, objective, and progressive manner. The purpose of these obstacle courses is to prepare patients for the chaos of their daily lives and help them confidently overcome these challenges.

To make obstacle courses specific, Julie suggests replicating the functional demands of the patient's specific goals. This means creating exercises and challenges that directly mimic the movements and tasks the patient needs to perform in their daily life. By doing so, the patient can develop the skills and confidence necessary to navigate these challenges effectively.

In addition to being specific, obstacle courses should also be dynamic. This involves incorporating a combination of exercises and layering dynamic challenges. By introducing variability and unpredictability into the obstacle course, patients can improve their ability to adapt and respond to different situations. This dynamic nature of the obstacle course helps simulate real-life scenarios and prepares patients for the unexpected.

Objectivity is another crucial aspect of executing obstacle courses effectively. Julie suggests leveraging subjective and objective outcome measures to make the obstacle course objective. This means using measurable criteria to assess the patient's progress and performance. By having clear and measurable goals, both the therapist and the patient can track improvement and make necessary adjustments to the obstacle course.

Lastly, obstacle courses should be progressive. This involves gradually increasing the difficulty and complexity of the challenges as the patient improves. Progression ensures that patients are continually challenged and can continue to develop their skills and abilities. It also helps to keep the obstacle course engaging and motivating for the patient.

Overall, executing obstacle courses in a specific, dynamic, objective, and progressive way is essential for helping patients develop the confidence and competence to effectively navigate the challenges in their daily lives.

Take a listen to learn how to better serve this population of patients & athletes.

If you're looking to learn more about live courses designed to better serve older adults in physical therapy or our online physical therapy courses, check our entire list of continuing education courses for physical therapy including our physical therapy certifications by checking out our website. Don't forget about all of our FREE eBooks, prebuilt workshops, free CEUs, and other physical therapy continuing education on our Resources tab.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

00:00 - JULIE BRAUER

Welcome to the Geri on Ice segment of the PT on Ice daily show. My name is Julie Brauer. I am a member of the Older Adult Division, and we are going to be talking this morning about obstacle courses and leveling up our dynamic gait training. So I've been really passionate about creating meaningful obstacle courses for a really long time, and I've become even more excited about this topic since our live course has gotten this massive revamp where we spend an entire lab focusing on dynamic gait challenges and how to layer. So I'm so excited to dive into this today because obstacle courses can be a really challenging, fun, creative way to implement dynamic gait training into our plans of care. With the purpose of preparing our patients for the chaos that is their daily lives, right? We want them to be able to move confidently through the chaos of their lives. And if we really think about it, What better exercise could we give our patients than a combination of exercises, a combination and layering of dynamic challenges that exactly replicate the functional demands of their specific goal, right? However, I think we many times really missed the mark here on executing this in an effective way. And when I say executing in an effective way, I mean in a way that is specific and dynamic, objective and progressive. So when I reflect back on the past eight years of my practice, 02:37 OBSTACLE COURSE LIMITATIONS When I think about all the obstacle courses that I have seen throughout various settings, most of them are variations of stepping over cones, or stepping over hurdles, or many times it's stepping over canes. Many times it's one rep, the patient goes through that obstacle course forwards, and then the next time they go through it sideways. Many times it's weaving around cones as well as stepping over them or maybe stepping in and out of an agility ladder. And when we think about that, we have to realize it's pretty unidimensional, right? It doesn't exactly look like real life. Most of these patients are not on a clock. We aren't often capturing our PE while the patient is going through the obstacle course, right? Like I could go on and on about a list of things that are wrong with our typical obstacle courses that we see in our clinics, in our profession. And while stepping over cones and navigating around them is a really solid place to start, we really have to start thinking about moving beyond that, right? I consider stepping over cones and navigating around cones very similarly to our other underdosed exercise. I will go as far as to say that I think that cone stepping is the ankle pump of dynamic gait training. Stepping over cones is the ankle pump of dynamic gait training. And so why? So let's unpack that. Because many of you would probably say, like, what do you mean stepping over cones is challenging for my patients? And I'm going to respond with, well, yeah, I mean, tandem standing is challenging for a lot of my patients, but I'm sure as hell not going to waste multiple weeks of a plan of care with my patient in tandem stance, right? The question becomes, is it the right challenge? Is it the right challenge? Similarly to tandem stance, Do the demands of stepping over cones match the entirety of the chaos and the dynamic demands that comprise our patients' lives? We have to realize that stepping over cones only hits one aspect of dynamic gait and balance, right? It only hits on anticipatory balance. And we know that balance can break down in multiple different areas. And there's so many other components of balance and dynamic gait that we want to pay attention to. we have to realize that stepping over cones is not super specific, right? It doesn't look like real life. Our older adults are not moving around in an environment where these very bright orange cones are sticking out to alert them they need to step over that thing, right? And then also, you know, just thinking about If I am able to get my patient really competent and confident in stepping over cones or weaving around cones, does that actually translate to our patients feeling incredibly confident to take on the adventures in their world? 06:08 ROOM TO GROW WITH OBSTACLE COURSES So we have to first reflect on why there's just a lot of room to grow when it comes to our typical obstacle courses, all right? So now that we've set that framework, let's talk about how to level up our dynamic gait training from assessment to implementation and creating in dialed in workouts, focusing on how to make these obstacle courses specific, objective, dynamic, and progressive. All right. And we're going to put this in the framework of focusing on two different types of goals. And these were goals and dynamic eight challenges that students who were part of our MMOA live course a couple weeks ago in Oklahoma came up with. absolutely stellar students who came up with really awesome dynamic challenges. So I'm going to share some of these with you. So these two goals that we'll be talking about back and forth, um, that many of you can relate to with your patients are the goals of one, being able to independently navigate through the airport and board an airplane independently to be able to go on vacation. And then two, to be able to independently tend to a garden. All right. So two goals that are very common among older adults. And we'll talk about how to make it specific, dynamic, objective and progressive. All right. 10:21 SPECIFIC OUTCOME MEASURES So starting out with making our obstacle courses really specific. This is where we need to dig deep. So if you're part of our MMA crew, you hear us talk about our formula, make it meaningful, load it, dose it all the time. So this is that make it meaningful part, right? So we need to dig deep into what that goal actually looks like. I want to peel back all the onion layers. So if my patient is telling me, well, I want to be able to go on vacation. I am having my patient take me through from start to finish. I want to know exactly what that looks like for her or for him to go from getting out of that car into the airport through the airport onto the plane into into their seats right so I am asking question after question after question because I want to visualize what that goal looks like, right? If it's gardening, I want to know exactly what the functional movements are that comprise that goal because there is where I'm starting to create my obstacle course. I am in my head taking mental notes about what are all the pieces and parts that are going to comprise this obstacle course to make it very specific for the patient. Now, sometimes going seven layers deep with our patients is really, really difficult, right? They just, they have a hard time answering these questions or having that conversation with us. This is where we can leverage our outcome measures such as the PSFS or the FES and the ABC, right? Those are going to give us some insight into some components of their daily lives that are really scary or they feel like they're going to lose their balance or fall or components that they're actually really confident in. So you can use those outcome measures when perhaps the conversational part and you're asking a million questions and digging deep, is a little bit difficult for your patient. And then we want to really leverage our objective outcome measures, right? So our mini-best and our DGI, because that's going to give us very, very, very specific information. If our patient is telling us that, yeah, I'm having a difficult time because I'm afraid people are going to knock into me at the airport, well, I'm sure as heck gonna want to look at their reactive balance with their mini best, right? So we wanna use both digging deep, asking the questions, using those subjective outcome measures, and then definitely using those specific objective outcome measures to see where perhaps the balance is breaking down, right? So to give a couple of specific examples, If our patient, maybe in their PSFS, are saying that lifting that suitcase over their head is really the part that is limiting them from feeling confident and being able to go on that trip, maybe it's a strength component that we really want to focus on. So maybe I'm going to look at a press or a push press and see what that looks like in isolation and maybe coach that up, right? But then I know that I'm going to add a push press or a press into my obstacle course, because maybe it's not that the strength component of that push press is the big issue, but more that they are so fatigued after going through the entire airport that they just don't have the energy to get that suitcase up into that overhead bin, right? And so, again, to bring it back to the balance component, if they're telling us, I am so scared of getting bumped by someone at the airport, because I'm afraid it might fall, I want to know, hmm, what does their reactive balance look like? I want to look at forward. I want to look at backwards. I want to look at lateral. And then to put that into the obstacle course, maybe I can do something like our stellar students did a couple of weeks ago, where they use TRX straps. And as the patient's walking, they swing those TRX straps at spontaneous times, to see how the patient reacts to that, right? Or you could do something like as your patient is walking, you offer an external perturbation and see what their stepping strategy is. All right, so that's how to make your obstacle course as you're figuring out what the pieces and parts are very, very specific to what they're telling you and what you're finding throughout your assessments. Next, we have to talk about how to make it dynamic. And what I mean by dynamic is not just the patient is moving, right? Like, you know, I can see a lot of you being like, well, yeah, well, you know, stepping over cones or hurdles like that is dynamic. But we have to think more about just the patient moving, right? Yes, that is dynamic, but we have to remember that we need to mimic a dynamic environment, not just our patient being dynamic and our patient moving, right? And in addition to that, what I mean by dynamic is layering. 14:21 MIMICKING REAL LIFE CHALLENGES We want to combine anticipatory balance, reactive balance, vestibular fitness, strength, power. We want to combine all of those things together in our obstacle course, because that's real life. And that's when balance breaks down, when we were trying to navigate through all these different components. Remember that older adults are not waking up in the morning. And for the first two hours of their day, they're only doing a single task. And then the next two hours of their day, they're doing a dual task in reactive balance, right? Like they are constantly moving in and out of forward gate, sideways gate, making 360 degree turns, reactive balance, anticipatory balance, cognitive tasks, motor dual tasking. All that stuff is happening constantly. So we want to mimic that type of chaotic environment. We want to layer all of those challenges on. So what would that look like? Let's think about our gardening example. So if we're thinking, and our patient is telling us, okay, so I have to pull the hose, right? And I have to pull the hose and walk along the grass. And so you're thinking about this, hmm, how can I mimic that? Could I have my patient pull a rope? Could I also then have them do head turns where they're looking behind their shoulder to make sure that their hose isn't totally annihilating all of their flowers, right? You're making it that specific, but you're layering on challenges. What about for the individual who wants to go on vacation, they're really scared about stepping onto the escalator with their suitcase, right? So how do I replicate that? Can I step onto a variable terrain, like stepping onto a BOSU ball, while I'm lifting a weight or doing a suitcase deadlift, right? So now we have that sensory orientation, we're adding in that vestibular fitness, we're adding in the strength to step on and get stability on a moving object while also having the strength to lift an object. If we think about our gardening example, think about the act of pulling weeds. Maybe we're getting our patient down into a half kneel and we're doing a rowing exercise for strength. Or maybe it's more of the balance component our patient is worried about when they go to pull those weeds. So we do something like utilize squigs or we get a really heavy dumbbell and we tie a TheraBand around it and we have them pull the TheraBand and release. or we put a resistance band around them in half kneeling, and we go ahead and give them perturbations. So we layer on all different types of challenges, anticipatory, reactive, vestibular fitness, strength, power. That is how we layer. And we want to layer and layer and layer because that is what real life is like. Next, we have to find a way to make this objective, right? We have to dose it appropriately. We have to find a way to progress our obstacle courses. So we got to think about our goal, right? If we think about gardening or the airport example, if the goal is to be able to continuously move through, let's say 20 minutes, because let's say it takes 20 minutes to get through the airport. Gardening usually takes 20 minutes of time to do all those tasks. Okay, that's our long-term goal. So maybe we start out by, we want to see how many rounds you can get through when you continuously move for six minutes. That's more of the short-term goal. And we're recording how many rounds did they get through? How many breaks were required? Or if you have someone who, for example, gets to the airport really, really, really last minute, which just, like, my anxiety goes up even thinking about it, and you know they're going to be racing through the airport, maybe you want to design the workout so that that intensity is really, really high. And maybe you're doing something like three rounds of that obstacle course for time. We also want to be tracking our PE and using that to progress our goal. So if our patients, you know, capacity is really struggling, for example, you know, within three minutes of the obstacle course, it feels like an RPE of seven or eight, then maybe one of our goals is that it takes eight minutes of doing that obstacle course until that RPE of seven to eight come up. If we're focusing on balance capacity, are we using something like the balance stability scale to ensure that the variable terrain that you have mimicked, right, by perhaps having them walk on foam is enough? Or do we need to progress that by maybe underneath the foam, putting in some ankle weights or some other objects or having stepping stones to increase that balance challenge. So it actually elicits a step reaction, which maybe we saw in our mini best that we want to improve. If our patient more has a strength deficit, right? So that push press to get that suitcase in the overhead bin or the deadlift, maybe to get that mulch up from the ground or like a clean up from the ground to the shoulder and up overhead. Are we looking at our patient's estimated one rep max and making sure that we're working them at least 60% of that so that we can elicit positive strength adaptations? We have to make sure that we are dosing appropriately and that we have ways to progress this. Putting a patient on a clock is the easiest, easiest way to do it. Getting that RPE, really making what you're measuring be specific to what their goal is. And then the last part here is we can really utilize part practice of this big obstacle course to even more specifically dial in where our patient is having trouble, right? And it allows us to be very efficient because to create a big obstacle course can take a lot of space and a lot of time. So what we can do is as we're assessing and looking at this patient going through an obstacle course, we can see the pieces and parts that they have the most difficulty with. We can be asking them again from our questions and our subjective measures, like where are they having the most difficulty or where do they feel the most confident? And then we can pick out those pieces that we see and that they tell us and create like an EMOM or an AMRA. right? Making it very, very, very dialed in. So this is where I would take like three to four functional movements that comprise the goal, that comprise that entire obstacle course. So if we look at our gardening example, minute one, we, for an EMOM, we could do a sled push, or that could be a walker or resistance band, right? And we could be trying to mimic pulling that hose. Minute two, we could have our patient do some quadruped rows. So thinking about being down on the ground and doing some weed pulling or picking up different gardening tools. Minute three, we could be doing some external perturbations while they are in half kneeling. That could be mimicking pulling that weed and having to really catch themselves as they move backwards. Minute four, we could do something like a clean and press that could mimic trying to get that heavy bag of mulch from the ground up to the shoulder or up overhead. So that's how you can take your entire big obstacle course, pick out the important parts and create a workout that is much more succinct and easier to set up and doesn't require a whole bunch of space. Okay. That is what I got for you all today to come back around and wrap that up. When it comes to our dynamic gait training and creating obstacle courses, think about how you have to dig really, really deep. Leverage your subjective and objective outcome measures to focus on making your obstacle course specific, objective, dynamic, progressive, and then utilize EMOMs and AMRAPs to dial in the components that they are specifically having difficulty with. Now, talking about all this obstacle course stuff, I know it's getting some of you excited to think about dynamic gait training and all the different things you can do. You've got to come see us on the road to one of our live courses and check out our new revamp where, like I said, we spend an entire lab just on dynamic gait training and showing you all how to add in a lot of these layers. So on the road, there are tons of opportunities in October. My gosh, yes, it's October already. We will be in Virginia, California, and New Jersey. And then in November, we are in Maryland, South Carolina, New York, and Illinois. Plenty of options across the country to catch us out on the road and check out that super cool fun lab. On the flip side, our online courses, both Essential Foundations and Advanced Concepts are starting, gosh, next week. So October 11th and October 12th. Head to ptinice.com, message any of us. We'll be happy to answer any questions for you. We hope to see you on the road or online next week. Have a good day, guys.

OUTRO Hey, thanks for tuning in to the PT on Ice daily show. If you enjoyed this content, head on over to iTunes and leave us a review and be sure to check us out on Facebook and Instagram at the Institute of Clinical Excellence. If you're interested in getting plugged into more ice content on a weekly basis while earning CEUs from home, check out our virtual ice online mentorship program at ptonice.com. While you're there, sign up for our Hump Day Hustling newsletter for a free email every Wednesday morning with our top five research articles and social media posts that we think are worth reading. Head over to PTOnIce.com and scroll to the bottom of the page to sign up.

Dr. Lindsey Hughey // #ClinicalTuesday // www.ptonice.com

In today's episode of the PT on ICE Daily Show, Extremity Division Leader Lindsey Hughey explains that patients with frozen shoulder often struggle to manage their condition and experience fear of the unknown, which can significantly impact their cognitive and emotional well-being. Lindsey emphasizes the importance of understanding the patient perspective and their emotional stories. She highlights that patients may fear the future and the unfamiliar territory of living with a frozen shoulder, which can have a profound effect on their psychological well-being. Lindsey also emphasizes the need for healthcare professionals to appreciate the expectations and experiences of patients with frozen shoulder, acknowledging that their pain is not an exaggeration. She suggests providing controllable solutions and empowering patients to advocate for themselves in order to receive timely care and diagnosis. Lindsey underscores the challenges faced by patients with frozen shoulder in managing their condition and the significance of addressing their emotional and cognitive well-being.

Lindsey reinforces the importance of healthcare professionals assisting patients with frozen shoulder in finding ways to continue engaging in activities they love. This involves helping them adapt their activities or modify their movements so that they can still experience joy and maintain a sense of autonomy and independence.

Take a listen or check out the episode transcription below.

If you're looking to learn more about our Extremity Management course or our online physical therapy courses, check our entire list of continuing education courses for physical therapy including our physical therapy certifications by checking out our website. Don't forget about all of our FREE eBooks, prebuilt workshops, free CEUs, and other physical therapy continuing education on our Resources tab.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

00:00 LINDSEY HUGHEY Good morning PT on Ice Daily Show. How's it going? I am Dr. Lindsay Hughey. I will be your host today on Clinical Tuesday. It's so good to be with you all. It's been a little while. Today I am going to chat with you about frozen shoulder and helping your patients navigate no man's land. But before I unpack this episode, I'd love to tell you a little bit about courses that Mark, Cody, and I have coming up. Cody actually was just promoted to lead faculty. We are so excited. And he will be teaching his first class this weekend solo in Minnesota so Rochester and there are still tickets left if you want to join him he would love that and you're sure to have a blast with him this weekend so October 7th and 8th can you believe we're already in October so wild other courses coming up in November on November 11th 12th we'll be in Woodstock Georgia and then our final courses of the year are in December. So you have two opportunities on December 2nd, 3rd. Cody will be in California, Newark, California. And then December 9th, 10th, I will be at CrossFit Endure again. That's always a blast of a spot. So Fort Collins, Windsor, Colorado area would love you to join. Those are our last of 2023. And then we'll be in 2024, which is super wild. So please join us. Thanks for letting me share courses coming up. 03:37 LIVING WITH FROZEN SHOULDER So last week, if you tuned in to clinical Tuesday, Mark hopped on here and he chatted about frozen shoulder, just the challenges associated with treating folks with frozen shoulder. And he really highlighted not only best treatment as we know it, but the importance of coming alongside the patient. And we need to do that better because this is an area, and if you think about any patient you've ever seen with frozen shoulder, it's always challenging, right? Because they are suffering and there are just so many unknowns. But we do have more knowns in regards to the patient perspective that just came out this past May. William King and Claire Hebron out of the Physiotherapy Theory and Practice Journal published a qualitative review of frozen shoulder. So specifically giving us the vantage point from the patient. So this study involves six folks, two were females, four were males. Their age range between 35 and 66. So a varied mix of sexes and then age ranges. They all were British and there was a mix of right and left and even bilateral frozen shoulders. So these interviews were done with these six folks and the question that was asked of them was can you describe in as much detail as possible what was important and meaningful to you in your experience of living with frozen shoulder? They used hermeneutic feminology methodology for those research nerds that want to know and they found the following five themes And so today I'm going to tell you what those themes are, and then I want to unpack some of the participant details from each theme. And I'm sure you'll be able to relate with some of your patient care experiences. And then kind of end the show with suggesting a rewrite of the title, plus some key takeaways for us going forward in caring for these folks with frozen shoulder. So the five themes illuminated from this article, and again, that's title, and I'll drop the link, is Frozen Shoulder, Living with Uncertainty and Being in No Man's Land. The five themes that were found were, number one, patients felt an incredible pain experience that they described as dropping me to my knees. Two, a struggle for normality in life. Three, an emotional change of self four the challenges of traversing the health care journey and then five coping and adapting and learning how to do that. So I want to unpack each one of these just a couple examples to help you appreciate that patient perspective. So dropping me to my knees that incredible pain experience All of the patients that were interviewed described multiple experiences where if they move their shoulder quickly or hit up against an object unexpectedly or involuntarily kind of reached and forgot about their shoulder for a second, that this pain would literally drop them to their knees. That when they would go to like stretch in the morning, they would scream and writhe out of pain. And this not only affected their body and their discomfort but like their family. Some of the participants described kind of scaring their partner because of like sudden outbursts or yelled. So an experience that's not just personal but affecting those around them. 07:28 EMOTIONAL CHANGE OF SELF Number two, the struggle for normality. So a lot of the folks describe multiple daily activities just being very limited and I'm sure your patients have had the same right just getting dressed, just rolling over in bed, unable to sleep, just that constant ache that's with them always kind of being in their mind and then challenging just normal daily activities. Not just ADLs and IADLs, but starting to lose work function, missing work and or recreational function. So one participant actually had to sell their fishing boat or chose to because they said just transporting the boat became so cumbersome and a reminder of their shoulder limitation. One of the participants described being unable to throw the ball. They're at a family gathering and their kid is watching other people throw the ball with their parent and the parent that has frozen shoulders just sitting there thinking, oh I can't even like throw the ball with my kid so this normalcy doesn't only impact them personally again in their daily life but it's impacting their family relations around them their work right their ability to actually provide for their family and then the recreation like enjoyment in life people that love to fish that was my dad's like favorite pastime if there's an emotional psychological peace here that is huge then that is challenged when someone has frozen shoulder that they can't do that one activity that brings them peace or joy and they can't um help provide for their family because they're suffering Which leads us to that third theme found, an emotional change of self. So all of the participants described overall just low mood from being in constant pain, having low self-esteem and starting to feel less worth in their family unit. Just kind of feelings of uselessness because not being able to reach overhead or being limited in the ability to just help out with daily chores. this was a really challenging thing to read, but one of the patients described that emotional change as if you were an animal, you would be put down because you're miserable. So basically like lack of thriving and like that was heartbreaking to read, but like this is how low emotions get when you're in, when patients have that frozen shoulder state. And a lot of them said not just the emotional drain is challenging, but like you're physically drained because of that emotional taxation. So multiple participants reported poor sleep, which I already mentioned earlier from a normalcy perspective, but they linked that to how this led to fluctuating mood because you never know when you're gonna get a good night's sleep. And so overall mood was very cantankerous and unpredictable. which patients even again mention that they're not able to even sleep in the same bed as their partner because they're so disturbed and uncomfortable in their sleep. And so they're sleeping in a separate room, again, that's that intertwining like emotional change of self being affected. and when this happens right you start seeing sleep being affected it makes you want to prompt for health care help right and so this leads to that fourth theme where patients are traversing the challenge of the health care journey going to a health care professional hoping they can help them sleep better helping they can take away the pain. 09:28 IMPACT OF DELAYED DIAGNOSIS ON TREATMENT But what most of the participants really highlighted is that this delayed diagnosis happened consistently where they saw multiple healthcare professionals prior to actually getting a solid diagnosis that this is in fact frozen shoulder. And so there was this, there's this period of not knowing and switching back and forth, like what's wrong with my shoulder? And then you finally know. And, um, even the treatments they were getting were challenging because patients said they didn't actually see solid results. So they would ask for a pain medication and then some of the healthcare professionals would be afraid of addiction. So they wouldn't give them stronger medications to help. And so there was this balance of figuring out what's that pain medication that's right for the patient. A lot of the patients, said that injections were life-changing. So getting a corticosteroid injection was helpful, but it didn't always happen right away. And some of them had to really advocate for that to occur. And that some, even the patients that were finally recommended to get the injection mentioned they were afraid of the needle. So we have to understand it might be a delay to get to the treatment that's effective, And then they might even have a fear of actually using that treatment that's recommended from the healthcare provider. So they're dealing with a lot of challenges in the healthcare journal. And disappointingly enough, as for most of our audience that are PTs, a lot of the folks said that PT wasn't the greatest. They didn't have initial great experiences because the PT would give them stretches that were super painful and not working. And the patient would have to wait a whole week to tell the therapist that, and then the therapist would give them something new, and then the stretches would hurt and not really work, and they'd come back again. We can do better here, right? If you test, retest in that session, you'll know whether that's working. So some kind of disappointing healthcare journeys for most of these folks. But there was some hope along the journey. So the fifth theme found was coping and adapting. Once patients did finally get to the healthcare provider or the PT that started providing effective care, they did have hope. Once they saw it start working or when they got that injection and the pain started going away, they could move their shoulder a little bit more. So when pain's down and range is better, they were super jazzed about it and finally had some hope. Various participants did say that it requires that coping and adapting, it requires you to shift your mindset, that press on attitude in the face of adversity. So helping our patients get there quicker, I think is something that we have an opportunity for. Another part of that, some coping strategies was people just learning, some of the participants mentioning that learning to work around the disability, right? If they were right-handed, starting to use their left arm, to keep functioning in kind of a pushing through mentality. The final binding theme of all of these, so we've unpacked examples of dropping me to my knees, an incredible pain experience, the struggle for normality, three, an emotional change of self, four, the challenges of the healthcare journey, and then five, coping and adapting. That theme that they found binding them all together was uncertainty. Or as the authors of the study titled No Man's Land. One thing I said that I was going to unpack was a suggestion for a rewrite. So we are dealing with humans, not just men. So I'd love to suggest that we call this No Human's Land. But this does come from a phrase, right, that was used to describe unowned land or unoccupied land or land that's not officially owned or inhabited by someone. but we are dealing with multiple humans, right? Not just males. So that rewrite I think is important here. 13:58 FROZEN SHOULDER & THE FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN But ultimately the main thing I want you to appreciate is with the unknown of how this disease may progress or regress, we have to do better for our patients here. They will not be able to manage their present living with frozen shoulder if they're fearful of the future. They don't read it. Oh, hopefully you're all still there. Give me a wave or like a thumbs up. If you are a little alarm went off. Sorry about that. Um, but patients will not be able, um, to manage living with their frozen shoulder. If they don't know how to manage it in the present, if they're fearful of the future, sorry for the folks that had to hear this twice on YouTube, but That fear of the unknown, right, or no humans land territory, this affects cognitive and emotional well-being. So what can we do with these themes, knowing patient perspective a little bit more deeply here? And I know it was only from six folks, but I'm sure you can relate and think back and reflect on patients you've seen, and they've had similar tough experiences. There are powerful takeaways here. appreciate that expectations from your patient they're always tied to a real human with an emotional story and we have to know that and appreciate that. We have to know that this pain is not an exaggeration. We need to give stabilization to that human story. with some of the facts of the do's and don'ts about frozen shoulders. See Mark's podcast last clinical Tuesday because he dove into best treatment and about what we know, what we thought we knew, and where we are presently. We have to provide controllable solutions. Some solutions. Help your patients advocate for themselves early. and with tenacity with their specialist, right? Help them get to that corticosteroid injection. You don't usually hear us saying that, right? That medicalization, we try to avoid that here at ICE, but here's a condition where we see, especially in the United Kingdom, this being a helpful pathway in combination with physical therapy. So help them get to the proper care and diagnosis faster. Make it so they don't have to see three healthcare professionals before they start feeling better. USPTs test retest the value of your treatment in session. Don't send someone home in writhing pain that worsens their range. Send them home with something that is helpful, right? That's easing and know that before they leave so they don't have a whole week of time of ineffective self-care. Let's not forget the human behind the painful and stiff shoulder. Those with frozen shoulder, let's help them feel direction at a really destabilizing time in their life. Help them figure out a way to do what they love, to keep working, help them be autonomous, to navigate their pain, their setbacks, and then their interactions with the healthcare team. We have a really cool opportunity to make living with frozen shoulder a little bit more endurable and making the patient feel more known. Thank you for being with me this clinical Tuesday and sorry about that little blip in the middle. Happy Tuesday. Cheers.

OUTRO Hey, thanks for tuning in to the PT on Ice daily show. If you enjoyed this content, head on over to iTunes and leave us a review and be sure to check us out on Facebook and Instagram at the Institute of Clinical Excellence. If you're interested in getting plugged into more ice content on a weekly basis while earning CEUs from home, check out our virtual ice online mentorship program at ptonice.com. While you're there, sign up for our Hump Day Hustling newsletter for a free email every Wednesday morning with our top five research articles and social media posts that we think are worth reading. Head over to PTOnIce.com and scroll to the bottom of the page to sign up.

Dr. Jess Gingerich // #ICEPelvic // www.ptonice.com

In today's episode of the PT on ICE Daily Show, #ICEPelvic faculty member Jess Gingerich challenges the notion of associating the word "safe" with breath and movement, particularly during pregnancy. She questions why breath suddenly becomes a determining factor for safety in this context. While she acknowledges that the pelvic floor experiences increased demand as the fetus grows, she also affirms that it is a muscle that can strengthen with appropriate exercise.

Jess encourages weightlifting as a means to strengthen the pelvic floor during pregnancy. She explains that stronger muscle fibers are more resilient, sharing this information with her clients in the clinic. She also highlights the fact that individuals are not instructed on how to manipulate their breath when coughing or sneezing, which exerts similar force on the pelvic floor as lifting 35 pounds. Since this natural phenomenon is beyond our control, it is unreasonable to expect individuals to exhale on exertion for every activity.

Jess also address the misconception that breath holding is detrimental to the pelvic floor. She explains that breath holding actually increases spinal stiffness, enabling individuals to lift more weight and become stronger. However, She clarifies that breath holding with a bear down to the pelvic floor is not recommended. She differentiates between different positions of the pelvic floor, referring to the basement (during bathroom use or childbirth) and the first floor or attic for other tasks.

Overall, the episode aims to alleviate fear and promote understanding of the pelvic floor. Jess emphasizes the importance of educating individuals about their pelvic floor and its functions, highlighting its potential for strength and dispelling myths and misconceptions surrounding breath and pelvic floor function.

Take a listen to learn how to better serve this population of patients & athletes.

If you're looking to learn more about our live pregnancy and postpartum physical therapy courses or our online physical therapy courses, check our entire list of continuing education courses for physical therapy including our physical therapy certifications by checking out our website. Don't forget about all of our FREE eBooks, prebuilt workshops, free CEUs, and other physical therapy continuing education on our Resources tab.

Are you looking for more information on how to keep lifting weights while pregnant? Check out the ICE Pelvic bi-weekly newsletter!

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

00:00 JESSICA GINGERICH Good morning and welcome to PT on Ice daily show. My name is Dr. Jessica Gingerich. And I am on faculty here with the pelvic division here at ICE, which means it's the beginning of the week. So happy Monday. We are going to talk about breathing in the pelvic floor. This is a hot topic in the pelvic space. often referred to specific breathing strategies that are like safe or protective to the pelvic floor. And in reality, it's just not that simple. So let's start with a few housekeeping items. We are currently in our last cohort of the year for the online course. So if this is something that you've been wanting to get on, we're about to put the pedal down starting January 9th. So head over to the website to sign up for that online course. In the month of October, we will be in Brookfield, Wisconsin on the 14th and 15th in Corvallis, Oregon, October 21st and 22nd. So again, those courses are all on the website, so head over there and snag your spot. They are filling up fast. 01:50 BREATHING DURING EXERCISE Okay, let's talk about breathing during exercise and how it stresses the pelvic floor. How many of you, as moms, clinicians, or just someone with a pelvic floor, hint, all of you, have been told to exhale on a lift or exhale on exertion? My bet is behind your phone, you are silently raising your hand because you've heard that. Whether it's for yourself or for your clients, wherever you are in the exercise space, you've probably heard that. When we think about this, so there's a lot of information from fitness professionals or medical professionals in the exercise space saying a lot of different things and boy is it confusing. This is especially true in the pregnant and the postpartum population. These clients typically come in having some kind of, have done some kind of research around breathing and lifting, and they're worried about their pelvic floor. So how do we help them understand how to manipulate their breath with exercise? So firstly, let's take the word safe out of it. If I am a non-pregnant female versus I get pregnant, Why is my breath all of a sudden making something safe or unsafe with a particular movement? There is more demand placed on the pelvic floor, especially as the fetus grows. Sure, yeah, that happens. Is the pelvic floor a muscle? Yes, it is. Do muscles get stronger as we place appropriate demand on them? Also, yes. We need to encourage weightlifting to some capacity during pregnancy so the muscle gets stronger. Stronger muscle fibers are harder to break. I love telling clients this in the clinic. We don't ask someone to manipulate their breath when they cough or they sneeze. which by the way is the equivalent of lifting 35 pounds or putting 35 pounds of force through the pelvic floor because it is a natural phenomenon that we cannot control. We don't tell them how to manipulate their breath there. So having someone exhale on exertion for everything is unreasonable. There are times where that can be helpful, especially early postpartum or if there are symptoms. But have you tried to exhale an exertion with double unders or box jumps or lifting 80% of a one rep max? You can't control your breath, like during movements where your heart rate's up. It's virtually impossible because your heart rate's up, your respiration rate's up. And as for the 80%, your body is just going to do what it's going to do, which is probably gonna include a brief breath hold or maybe even one that's longer so you can get through that movement well. Secondly, breath manipulation should be initiated one of two ways. Are they symptomatic? No. Continue what you're doing. Are they symptomatic? Yes. Let's change a bracing strategy or breath manipulation to see if we can continue that volume and that weight without symptoms. From there, we continue to scale as needed. And lastly, Breath holding during exercise. And what I mean by this is someone is lifting a heavy barbell or let's say both of their wiggly children at once from the ground. And Oh, by the way, one is screaming their head off. They're going to brace their core, hold their breath and lift the weight or their babies. Have they just ruined their pelvic floor or has their body just done what it's going to do naturally? My answer is the latter. We cannot always manipulate the breath, especially in life, especially life as a mom. We need to stop scaring moms and over-medicalizing breathing when in reality, our bodies are going to just do what it needs to do to get through a task. We believe in this so heavily that we teach bracing mechanics in detail, in depth, in our live course. So I mentioned those live courses at the beginning. Get on that. Like you, whether you're treating this population or not, you're going to see it. So to recap, there are no safe and unsafe exercises. It's simply, are we ready for that particular demand, whether that's weight or volume. We modify due to symptoms. We aren't ruining the pelvic floor by holding our breath. Breath holding increases spinal stiffness, which allows us to lift more weight, which also allows us to get stronger. And that's huge. Now, I do wanna be clear. Breath holding with a bear down to the pelvic floor is not what we want to do. When our pelvic floor goes down, and what we like to refer to that as in the basement, that's when we're going to the bathroom, right? That's when we are actually having a baby. any other time our pelvic floor is likely going to be on that first floor or in the attic and somewhere in between depending on the task at hand. So let's start taking the fear out of this. Let's start encouraging moms, really anybody, to do what their body's meant to do, and let's help teach them. It's something that we can do, we can teach them. Your pelvic floor, we can't see it, right? We can see how our shoulders move and how our neck moves and head moves. We can see that. We can't see how our pelvic floor moves unless we're laying down with a mirror between our legs doing an active Kegel, and that's not realistic. Also, knees go over toes when squatting. I hope everyone has a great Monday.

08:13 OUTRO Hey, thanks for tuning in to the PT on Ice daily show. If you enjoyed this content, head on over to iTunes and leave us a review and be sure to check us out on Facebook and Instagram at the Institute of Clinical Excellence. If you're interested in getting plugged into more ice content on a weekly basis while earning CEUs from home, check out our virtual ice online mentorship program at ptonice.com. While you're there, sign up for our Hump Day Hustling newsletter for a free email every Wednesday morning with our top five research articles and social media posts that we think are worth reading. Head over to ptonice.com and scroll to the bottom of the page to sign up.

Dr. Mitch Babcock // #FitnessAthleteFriday // www.ptonice.com

In today's episode of the PT on ICE Daily Show, Fitness Athlete lead faculty Mitch Babcock takes a deep dive into the jerk, discussing the importance of learning a strong leg drive, improving shoulder mobility, and committing to a strong finish with the movement.

Take a listen to the episode or read the episode transcription below.

If you're looking to learn from our Clinical Management of the Fitness Athlete division, check out our live physical therapy courses or our online physical therapy courses. Check out our entire list of continuing education courses for physical therapy including our physical therapy certifications by checking out our website. Don't forget about all of our FREE eBooks, prebuilt workshops, free CEUs, and other physical therapy continuing education on our Resources tab.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

00:00 INTRO

Hey everybody, welcome to today's episode of the PT on ICE Daily Show. Before we get started with today's episode, I just want to take a moment and talk about our show's sponsor, Jane. If you don't know about Jane, Jane is an all-in-one practice management software that offers a fully integrated payment solution called Jane Payments. Although the world of payment processing can be complex, Jane Payments was built to help make things as simple as possible to help you get paid. And it's very easy to get started. Here's how you can get started. Go on over to jane.app.payments and book a one-on-one demo with a member of Jane's support team. This can give you a better sense of how Jane Payments can integrate with your practice by seeing some popular features in action. Once you know you're ready to get started, you can sign up for Jane. If you're following on the podcast, you can use the code ICEPT1MO for a one month grace period while you get settled with your new account. Once you're in your new Jane account, you can flip the switch for Jane Payments at any time. Ideally, as soon as you get started, you can take advantage of Jane's time and money saving features. It only takes a few minutes and you can start processing online payments right away. Jane's promise to you is transparent rates and unlimited support from a team that truly cares. Find out more at jane.app.physicaltherapy. Thanks everybody. Enjoy today's episode of the PT on ICE Daily Show.

Good morning, everybody. Welcome to PT on ice Daily Show. I'm your host, Mitch Babcock from the Fitness Athlete Division. That means it's Fitness Athlete Friday, and I'm stoked to be back on the podcast, bringing to you another episode, this time going into some nuanced stuff around the jerk. So stay tuned for some more details around how to make your jerk a little bit better. Today's topic, don't be a jerk with your jerks. Before we get into that team, first of all, I'm wearing my Lions shirt. Did you watch the game last night? Of course you did. Thursday night football. Let's go Lions. It's been a long, hard existence being a Lions fan. So we're out here stoked that we got t01:27 MITCH BABCOCK

hree wins already on the season. Other news, non-football related, is that the fitness athlete team is going to be around the country coming up real fast here next weekend. Joe and myself are going to be out in Linwood, Washington, and we're rocking a big course out there. So if there's still time, if you want to slide in just under the cap of that course out in Linwood, if you're in the Seattle or greater Seattle area, we'd love to have you out at that course. We also have some courses coming up in the southern region. We've got San Antonio, Texas. And we've got Anna Maria Island in Florida. So if you're looking at Florida or a Texas course, we've got two of those in store for you coming up in the month of November. So otherwise, welcoming in the fall season here today.

01:43 MAKING YOUR JERK BETTER

And today's topic around don't be a jerk with your jerks. We just finished up a nice May cycle where we did a lot of snatching and clean and jerking for the last eight weeks. and giving my members of the gym as many helpful tools as I can as a coach and an athlete of what's helped me with my shoulder overhead, specifically the push jerk in this cycle, but all of these principles also apply for the split jerk as well. And I see this done wrong or at least thought about wrong a lot. I figured it was helpful to share with you guys, whether that's from a personal standpoint as an athlete, you're out there training in the gym yourself and you're like, hey, This is sweet. I hate jerks. I hate split jerks or push jerks. And I want to get better at those. Or if you want to be able to pass that on to your clients or members, hopefully this will be helpful. So the first thing I want to talk about is what not to do. Don't press your jerks.

03:37 THE JERK HAS LITTLE TO DO WITH ACTUAL PRESSING

The push jerk and the split jerk is not about how much you can press vertically. It has little to anything to do with actually pressing the bar vertically over your head. Think about what your one rep max strict press is. Ladies is usually somewhere in the ballpark of 60 to 100 pounds. Men, somewhere in the ballpark of 100 to 200 pounds of a strict press. And yet people are able to do almost twice as much as that when it comes to a jerk movement. It is not about your strength to move the bar off of your shoulder and press. So stop thinking of it like you need to push the bar up. The jerk is about pushing yourself under. That requires a couple things. One, specifically the legs. You need to start thinking about your legs way more than your shoulders on your jerks. It is all about your legs' ability to launch the bar off of your shoulders enough that you can then press your way under the jerk. Again, goes for the push jerk or the split jerk. So when you're in setup position, you've stood up that heavy clean and you're ready to make the jerk. Hopefully make the jerk. You need to be thinking about how much leg drive can I create vertically on this bar right now to launch this thing as far off my shoulders as possible. That means I need strong legs. I need to be better at my front squat. Specifically, when I stand up out of a heavy front squat, I need to be powerful in the finish as I'm standing and finishing that lift. So that's something that you can be training on days that you're not jerking at all, but be thinking about that last little third of the squat. Standing it up with a little power, with a little speed, and learning how to create really rapid short triple extension. Power cleans, same thing. Rapid triple extension at the top, but all we're trying to create here is more powerful legs. You can work on just dip and drives. It's a very common drill for Olympic lifters to work on. Get a bar in the front rack position. You just dip, hold, and just create a slight little bit of triple extension coming out. Dip, hold, create triple extension coming out. The focus point on the jerk needs to be on a strong leg drive. Now, once you get that to occur, then the press is actually you pushing your body under. It's just pushing myself down to a supported arm position. The shoulder is strong if it can meet the load in its locked out position. It's significantly less strong when it has to do any sort of motion to try to press out that kind of weight. So the quicker you are to press yourself down and support, the heavier of a jerk you'll be able to have, because it's just about supporting the load, not about pressing the load.

07:01 SHOULDER MOBILITY & THE JERK

That requires shoulder mobility. And this is the big downfall to your split jerk is likely either A, you've been thinking about trying to press it over your head this whole time instead of jumping over your head. And B, your shoulders are too dang tight to really get into that full 180 degrees of flexion lockout arm position. You're trying to press it out in front and that's killing you, right? So you gotta open up that shoulder mobility. And you guys are the experts at doing this. Mitch, what do you like to do to open up your shoulders right before I'm weightlifting. I'm not talking about a PT session. I'm talking about something members can do out in the gym, boom, in real time to open up that double arm overhead position. I want to use a green band, but I don't want to do a single arm. I want to do double arm. And so rather than looping the band and attaching it to the pull-up bar like we normally do, I want to drape the band around the bar in this fashion. This is a poor example, but you get what I'm trying to say. I just, I don't want to half hitch it at all. I want to just loop it over the bar and have the band hanging down. I'm going to put both my hands through the band and I'm going to spin around. If you're watching this, this is a great I hope you're having fun with this because I'm spinning right now. I'm going to do like three circles and what that's going to do is wind up that band. So I've got it looped over the bar and I wound it up by doing three circles in it. My hands are now held in this double overhead position and I'm going to kneel down on the ground from that position. I'm going to start to have the band pulling my shoulders, essentially both arms, right near my ears at this point. When I'm down there kneeling on the ground, hands overhead and hooked to the band, now I can start to add some side bending into this position, which really starts to peel on this lateral seam of my arm, coming down to thoracolumbar fascia, up into the tricep area. I can side bend left, side bend right, and even add in a little upper back T-spine extension to that drill. It is the best opener I have found recently to get my shoulders ready to push jerk. because I'm hanging out in the exact position, an exaggerated version of it, but the exact position I want to finish my jerk in, which is the head through, the T-spine up and extended, and the arms behind my ears. So when you're thinking about pushing yourself under the bar, make sure your shoulder mobility is opened up so that you can do that. Okay, so what do we got so far? Strong leg drive, Don't press your jerks. Instead, push yourself under your jerks and make sure your shoulder mobility is on board for you to do that really well.

10:47 IMPROVING JERK TECHNIQUE

And the last thing you need to think about, the only really cue I'm thinking after I think jump is I think head through. I think jump and I think head through. Too many people are scared to put their head through on a heavy jerk. They're committing to failing it and therefore they're committing to self-preservation. And so what they do is they jerk and they leave their head back behind the bar and they're like, if it works, cool, then I'll bring my head through. But if it doesn't, I can bail quickly and easy. That is just committing to failing the rep right from the start. You have to know that if this goes bad and I'm still pushing my head through and I can quickly get out and underneath the bar if I fail it. You're, trust me, you're athletic enough to move out of the way of the bar. I've seen it a number of hundreds and hundreds of times of athletes trying to get the head through, fail the rep and are still getting out from underneath the bar. You've got to commit to that head coming under and through the window. Because if not, the bar is going to be out in front of your center of mass. And it's way too heavy for you to hang on to out there. My max jerk is 350. There's no way if I don't get my head through that, that I can hold that kind of load overhead. I've got to bring the head through and I've got to bring the arms behind my head. And that's when I close my eyes and say a little prayer. Oh, I hope this goes good. But the head is forward. I'm not looking at the bar. The head's got to be forward and through. So the only two cues, if you're thinking about anything, it's jump as hard as I can and push my head through that window and pray for the best. Shoulder mobility needs to be on board. It's all about the legs. It's not about the shoulders. And it's about getting your head through the bar. And if you do those three things, you go out in the gym today, right now, and you start practicing those three things, I promise your jerks are going to feel faster, snappier. You're going to reach lockout a lot quicker, and you'll be able to PR that push jerk or that split jerk, whatever you're doing. And hopefully add 10 pounds on it. Don't forget to tip your caddy when you do. All right. I'll open, I'll share my Venmo below. Don't worry. That's how to not be a jerk with your jerks. I hope that stuff helps you. I hope that gives you some things to think about maybe for your athletes you're working with or cues that can help them and restore that overhead position. I think I should probably film a video of that shoulder mobility opener. I got a feeling I'm going to get some comments or questions about, Hey Mitch, I had no idea what you were trying to explain. Can you drop a video? So I'll walk right out in the gym. I'll film that and I'll do my best to drop a link to that video in the best place possible. Maybe over on my Instagram. Head over to my Instagram, Dr. Mitch TPT, follow that. And then, uh, I'll drop that video there for you guys, man. So glad you guys are here. Happy Friday. Go lions three and one and one and O in the NFC North. It's a good time to be a lion's fan for the first time in about seven years. Team. I hope you have a great weekend. If you're taking a nice course, let us know if you're taking a nice course next weekend, we'll see you out there. And if you want us to head down South, come find us in San Antonio or find us in Florida. and we'll be hanging out down there in the month of November. Have a great weekend, everybody.

01:27 MITCH BABCOCK

Hey, thanks for tuning in to the PT on Ice daily show. If you enjoyed this content, head on over to iTunes and leave us a review and be sure to check us out on Facebook and Instagram at the Institute of Clinical Excellence. If you're interested in getting plugged into more ice content on a weekly basis while earning CEUs from home, check out our virtual ice online mentorship program at ptonice.com. While you're there, sign up for our Hump Day Hustling newsletter for a free email every Wednesday morning with our top five research articles and social media posts that we think are worth reading. Head over to ptonice.com and scroll to the bottom of the page to sign up.

Dr. Jeff Moore // #LeadershipThursday // www.ptonice.com

In today's episode of the PT on ICE Daily Show, ICE CEO Jeff Moore emphasizes emphasizes the importance of trusting a proven process for success, particularly in the later stages of a business or any endeavor when uncertainty arises. He cautions against blindly trusting any process and encourage listeners to thoroughly evaluate its merits before putting their trust in it.

Jeff acknowledges the prevalence of outrageous claims and self-proclaimed experts in today's era. He cautions against falling into this trap and emphasizes the need to dig deep and evaluate a process before trusting it. He suggests spending ample time observing and studying someone who has achieved desired outcomes through their process before fully committing to it.

This advice applies to various domains, including clinical practice. If someone is considering adopting a specific treatment approach or following a mentor's guidance, they should first spend a substantial amount of time observing the mentor's success with a wide range of patients. Only after extensive evaluation and proof of the process's effectiveness should one trust and implement it.

Overall, Jeff emphasizes the importance of trusting a proven process but stresses the need for thorough evaluation and proof. Blindly trusting any process without proper evaluation may not lead to the desired outcomes.

Take a listen to the podcast episode or read the full transcription below.

If you're looking to learn more about courses designed to start your own practice, check out our Brick by Brick practice management course or our online physical therapy courses, check out our entire list of continuing education courses for physical therapy including our physical therapy certifications by checking out our website. Don't forget about all of our FREE eBooks, prebuilt workshops, free CEUs, and other physical therapy continuing education on our Resources tab.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

00:00 JEFF MOORE

Okay team, what's up? Welcome to Thursday. Welcome to Leadership Thursday. And welcome back to the PT on Ice Daily Show. Thrilled to have you here. I am Dr. Jeff Moore, currently serving as a CEO of Ice, and always happy to be here on Leadership Thursday, which, as always, is Gut Check Thursday. Let's start off every Thursday how we always do. Let's talk about the workout of the week. Here's what we've got cooked up for you. We've got 21-15-9. Couldn't be a more classic rep scheme. We've got thrusters and bar-facing burpees. So hopefully the first thing you're thinking is it looks a lot like Fran, right? We've got two movements, we've got that classic rep scheme, but I'm going to argue it's going to be a bit worse. With Fran, we've got push-pull, right? So at least you're pushing that thruster and then you're pulling up on that rig. Now we've kind of got push-push, right? So we're going to go thruster and then hitting that push-up motion during that burpee. It's probably going to be a little more painful. Additionally, you're probably not going to be able to sprint through quite as fast, looking at how long a burpee takes compared to a pull-up. So in Fran, you might be able to out sprint the darkness, right? You might be able to get done with the workout before that darkness really catches up to you. Here, I think you might be living in it for a while. So just let us know how it goes. Make sure you tag us, Ice Physio, hashtag Ice Trained. Let's have some fun with the workout over the next couple of days. As far as upcoming courses, the thing I want to highlight this week, is that virtual ICE is open. So as you all know, our virtual mentorship, we only open it every quarter for a couple days, bring in a new group, add into the crew, and then launch, close those doors and launch for the next quarter. We are trying to hold that price steady. It's been 29 bucks a month forever. It's still 29 bucks a month. Yes, it's CEU eligible, but more importantly, it's a great way as you're going through ICE courses to be able to be in that group, hold you accountable. Every Tuesday we meet, going over case studies, new thoughts that aren't built into our courses. It's a way to deepen your knowledge and really make it more clinically implementable, if you will, by every week revisiting and expanding on some of our concepts. So if you want to jump in, go to Virtual Ice on the website. PTOnIce.com, as always, is where everything lives.

02:37 TRUSTING THE PROCESS Let's talk about trusting the process. So trust the process, absolutely, right? You should totally trust the process. But I wanna unpack a couple things around this conversation that aren't talked about enough. So number one, trust the process. Everyone speaks of this in the early stages. Okay, so kind of a classic conversation around this topic is, hey, when you're just getting started, you might not see gains right away, don't worry, trust the process, it'll show up in time. That's clearly very relevant. And certainly when you think about areas like fitness where we often talk about this, yes, you're not gonna stack on a ton of muscle in the first couple weeks of training. You've gotta trust the process and those gains do show up down the road. There are certain areas where that early phase This concept is the most important, but I'm going to argue today that in the world of business, it's really in the later phases where I think this concept becomes significantly more important.

05:29 LOSING CLARITY ON CAUSE & EFFECT

So let me, let me build the argument. So early on in business. The connections are very, very clear, right? You don't need nearly as much trust that what you're doing is reaping a reward simply because cause and effect are much clearer early on. For example, If you're building a practice and you form a new relationship and you see an increase in customers, it's pretty obvious that those increased customers came from that relationship because you don't have a ton of relationships yet. And any increase in customers is really obvious because you don't have a ton of customers yet either. Additionally, it's really easy when you run an ad or something of that nature to see again that swell of business following that ad is quite noticeable and it's very clear where it came from. Following up with your customers is a lot easier. Number one, there aren't as many of them, so it's easier to dive in and figure out, hey, how did you wind up here? Where'd you come from? and there aren't as many people delivering your service. So you don't have to bring everyone together and try to kind of coagulate the data and see, hey, where's everybody coming from? The connections are simply clearer. There's not as much noise, little changes make very obvious results, and it's not as hard to collect or aggregate the data, because there aren't quite as many people delivering the service. Early on, you don't need as much trust. Five years down the road, it's much harder, right? It's much more challenging. You often find yourself saying things like, I have no idea where that person came from, right? There's so many more things going on. There's so much more noise that it's much, much harder to prove. Did this action result in a certain effect? Now we fight this valiantly, right? Everybody, and you should, is trying to track everything, right? Whether it's where a customer landed on your website, or if you're running an ad, you're putting a tag on there so you can see, hey, when that person came to the website, if we track them through to the commerce side, did they actually convert? You're doing your absolute best to track everything. But the larger you get, the more mature the organization, it becomes significantly more challenging to definitively prove that any individual action resulted in any significant outcome. There's simply too many variables. You don't know, did it come from word of mouth? You really can't track that all that well. There's so many things going on that it's tough to have that clarity that you had early on. The reality is growth results in necessarily losing some clarity on cause and effect. The more mature the business, the more true this is. So what's the answer? The answer is to very much embrace and trust the process. In the absence of proof, You're just gonna need to check the boxes of what's known to work. I would argue the earlier that you can do this, the earlier that you can stop wasting your time demanding proof of every single action that you did having a reward or a response, the more efficient you're gonna be and the faster you're gonna succeed. The earlier that you can say, I no longer need to see proof that this thing that I'm doing is reaping a reward, I'm just gonna do all of these things with absolutely ruthless consistency, and I'm going to trust that by doing so, the end result is going to be additional growth and more progress. The earlier you can trust the process, the more efficient and more successful you're gonna be. But there is a catch here. It's got to be a proven process. And this is what I want us to really think about this morning.

07:39 OUTRAGEOUS CLAIMS & TRUST

Team, we are living in an era of outrageous claims, right? We are living in an area where A huge amount of people that can't do are claiming to be able to teach, right? They're claiming to be able to get you unbelievable outcomes, even though they themselves don't really have a track record of being able to do so. That is the era in which we live. Heavily marketed, thinly veiled, outrageous claims. That is really where we are. Because of that reality, you need to dig deeper. The passion behind this topic is coming from having seen so many people over the years come to me and say, here's where I'm at. And me thinking, dude, how did you fall for that? Like that person, there was no reason to believe that those claims were being backed up by any significant track record of proof. The person simply did not dig deep enough. And that's what I wanna say to you today.

12:50 SHOULD YOU TRUST THE PROCESS?

Should you trust the process? Yes. after you have went through extensive lengths to prove that that process actually results in the real world, in the outcomes that you're seeking. This is across every domain. Clinically, if you're gonna choose a mentor, if you're gonna lock into somebody and say, I am going to treat the way that person treats, I'm gonna ask that person what the big rocks are, and darn it, I am gonna implement those in every patient that I see. If you're gonna do that, You better have spent a solid year around that person, watching them day in and day out succeed with patients. A wide variety of patients, a wide range of complexity of patients, until you get to a point where you're like, look, that person gets it done. Better than everybody else I've seen, almost regardless of who shows up in front of them, the methods that person's utilizing month after month after month after month consistently work. I buy it. That person can actually get it done. I am going to trust their process. In Con Ed, at ICE, I hope you never sign up for a certification until you've taken one of our courses and went back into the clinic and implemented and decided for yourself, do the tools that I learned in that weekend course or that online course when I went back in my clinic, was I demonstrably better? Was I more efficient? Was I having more fun? Did it actually work? Until we prove that to you, I don't want you to sign up for some long series of courses. I want you to test us, and I want you to go and see, does it actually work? That's the kind of level I want you digging in on everything. In business, you don't buy that someone can grow your business until you have talked to a bunch of people who aren't affiliated, who maybe have done some of their mentorship, but are not actively in their program, and you reach out in your private circle and say, hey, has anybody worked with so-and-so? I want to have some conversations. And you dive in and say, is it really as good as they say it is? Were the principles that they taught able to grow you? Anybody can put that on an Instagram ad. Did it actually work for you? Is your business three times bigger now than it was a year and a half ago like they said it would be? Dive deep and ask the hard questions. I love it when people reach out to me. And they're thinking about opening it onward, right? And they say, look, I want to talk to a couple other owners. I love it. They want to hear from the people. Did they actually deliver? I love when people who are getting coached up to become faculty at ICE, I hear them reaching out to other lead faculty. They're not offending division leaders by doing that. They're just going out and saying, hey, here's kind of what I'm being sold. Did it actually shake out like this? In looking for multiple sources. Business leaders, I hope you all are never offended by that. People are not second guessing you. Yeah, they are, but they're not disrespecting you. They're just doing the work. They're saying, look, I heard you, but now I'm gonna go see across multiple sources if what you're saying historically has added up. Are you actually able to get the job done? Have you proven that? Or are you just saying that because you want your business enterprise to grow? Do you have the goods? Team, in fitness, to me, with CrossFit, I had never heard of it before 2013, 14, but as I got into it, I looked around for proof. In the first thing I saw, in the second thing, in the third month, in the second year, is that everybody who just consistently did what was on the whiteboard and showed up five days a week had what I wanted, meaning tremendously well-rounded fitness. I was shocked by where they wound up. They had tremendous cardio engines. They were strong as all get-out. They had tremendous skills in gymnastics and mobility. The people who did the whiteboard, as written, five days a week, as hard as they could, and used that process, wound up exactly where I wanted to be. You can only watch that so many times until you're ready to say, okay, I believe it. I buy it and I'm all in. So yes, right, trust the process. And yes, put your head down and check the boxes. But after you've established certainty. Now I want to finish by saying here's why this is so critical. Here's why doing the legwork to prove to yourself to be fully committed that this person can actually get it done and that it should thus be transferable to your success. The reason it's so important is two things. Number one, once you do put your head down, and I am totally advocating for you to put your head down, right? Head down, stop looking for proof of every single thing, and just check the boxes with absolute rigor. I'm encouraging that. But once you do that, there aren't a lot of checkpoints. So once you've committed and you've said, I'm just gonna keep checking these boxes and I'm gonna trust the process, you're not really looking for proof, right? Because we've just established it gets harder and harder to gain any, so you've just simply gotta trust. The problem is if you're wrong, there aren't a lot of checkpoints to reveal to you that you're wrong. So you're gonna go a long ways down that trail. There is gonna be a tremendous investment until you realize, oh man, that system or that person or whatever didn't actually have the goods. I should have done more front-end homework. The second reason is because if you've done the work to truly prove it to yourself, if you've watched that clinician for a year and become absolutely certain their method works, if you've taken a couple courses and become absolutely certain that when you implement it, you're better for it, if you've done the work to be positive or as close to it as you can be, you're much less likely to quit. Once you put your head down and say, I'm just gonna check these boxes, I know what's gonna work, you are much more likely to go the distance to a point where you actually begin to reap very serious rewards because you won't be second guessing yourself because you've got certainty in your corner. But if you didn't do the work, you're gonna be saying much earlier than you should, am I sure this is the right path? And now you're gonna need proof and validation, which as we've just talked about, is hard to come by. So now you're gonna quit early, and if anything abbreviates success, it's early cessation of effort. Because there are a lot of checkboxes or checkpoints along the way to tell you whether or not you're on the right path, And because going the distance is so critical to success, you have to do the work to increase your certainty that that person's process or that system is gonna work for you. Do that work and then trust the process. Understand it's probably more important late in the game, at least in business, when things get cloudy and murky, than it is early on. I hope that spins the idea of trust the process, maybe a little bit different way in your brain, and certainly encourages you to go one step further on drilling down to be certain the process you're about to trust has actually proven merits historically. Have a wonderful Thursday, team. We'll see you next week. Enjoy that Gut Check Thursday workout. Cheers.

16:16 OUTRO

Hey, thanks for tuning in to the PT on Ice daily show. If you enjoyed this content, head on over to iTunes and leave us a review and be sure to check us out on Facebook and Instagram at the Institute of Clinical Excellence. If you're interested in getting plugged into more ice content on a weekly basis while earning CEUs from home, check out our virtual ice online mentorship program at ptonice.com. While you're there, sign up for our Hump Day Hustling newsletter for a free email every Wednesday morning with our top five research articles and social media posts that we think are worth reading. Head over to ptonice.com and scroll to the bottom of the page to sign up.