Article's to share

With my travelling in the past week I have had a chance to catch up on some reading. The Nov. 20 issue of ADVANCE for PT's and PTA's had some great articles including:

• Running backwards - the benefits of this include strengthening your body from different angles. There are even reverse locomotion marathons in France, Germany, and Italy.
  
• Health & Wellness --> Healthy People 2010
• The benefits of the apple - big memory booster
• Dog/canine PT as a career and a dog that is used as a therapeutic tool
• Pilates for pregnancy
• Working with the special education team
• Treatment of repetitive stress --> don't just change the environment, change the motion pattern...
• A great article about scope of practice and liability of a PT
• and of course the cover story about treating athletes as a PT
  

Furthermore, I thought this was a vital snippet to share:

Patients May Wish to Consider Physical Therapy for Pain Relief

In light of proposed sterner warning labels for acetaminophen, aspirin, and ibuprofen by federal health officials, patients may wish to consider the benefits of physical therapist intervention for pain relief from certain conditions.

"Many people are looking for alternatives to the sole use of medication to deal with painful conditions," says APTA President R Scott Ward, PT, PhD, in a recently released press release. "Pain medication may help you get through periods of severe pain, but it won’t always help you eliminate the underlying cause of some kinds of pain. For many individuals, it is the underlying causes such as poor posture and alignment, weak and/or inflexible muscles, or tight joint structures that actually exacerbate the painful condition."

There are many types of pain and inflammation that can be reduced by physical therapist intervention. For example, chronic pain in the back, shoulder, or knee, or pain associated with certain degenerative diseases such as osteoarthritis, can be reduced with the appropriate combination of medication and exercise.

Got to Admit It's Getting Better

While my blogging style still needs drastic improvements, I figured I would distract you all by putting more stuff on the side bar >>>

I added a clock to let everyone know exactly what time it is and a link to another PT blog that revolves around sports.

To update you all: I am in the process of doing some "winter cleaning" in between my apartments/living situations. My mother has to be one of the few people who buys space saving stuff and it ends up taking up more space than before.

I am also doing some PT stuff somewhere in there. Going through all of my old notes to start organizing them into binders. Some Student Assembly and NYSSIG stuff. Starting to study for my licensure exam which is almost 2 years away. Life goes on, and so do we...

PS, anyone who will be in the NY area April 21-22. LIU-Brooklyn, will be hosting a Board Review Course that costs $75 for one day and $100 for both days. More details to come, let me know if you are interested.

PPS, check out mypetfat (makes a great gift)... it's supposed to be a way to change people's thinking about weight loss... pretty interesting.

Done, done, and done

That is a great feeling, to be rid of the stress of exams... well worth the efforts I put forth, alliteration...

Now I am numerically, half way through the curriculum, but I really only have 3 semesters, two of which are cut way short by clinicals... which I have 31 weeks of... and that's it baby!

Now with some leisure time I still have to stay PT driven... While commuting around today I ended up reading PTMagazine, which is just chock full of usefulness. I was sad that my bus ride ended because I had to put it down... It is a great way to get caught up on a great number of issues affecting the profession of PT. In the pages I got to read today I learned about PT's in Space, a little reimbursement advice, and read a letter from another student PT blogger about the importance of utilizing the internet, a letter about PT's making diagnoses and how important that is for our profession, and a letter about the pitfalls of VISION 2020... it is really an amazing resource that I know not a lot of people take advantage of for understandable time reasons, but this is worth it...

If people have their backs turned to some of these issues, it probably won't end as well as if something positive gets done now...

almost there...

just one more... adult neuromuscular management... I am not being smart about it, because I am pretty burned out at this point...

I am not looking at the final, I am looking past it... to the point where I can sleep in for the first time in a while... and relax my mind for at least a day or two (maybe)... and physically get myself back together, and financially, and in any other aspect of my life that I have been neglecting...

free time... lookin forward to it...

but until then... study the neuro I must...

2 down, 3 to go...

FINALLLLLLLLSSSSSSSS!

that's all I got's to say about that...

off to study...

happy holidays... this was the closest picture I could find linking the holidays to health...

Struggling for some air

5 finals in 3 days... should be a good ol' time... especially when I am in the middle of switching living situations...

I did find time between studying and moving to attend the first NY SSIG Executive Board Meeting for the new 2006-2007 Board. It is always great to be around other people with as much passion for the profession as I have. We threw around a lot of great ideas and if we can accomplish half of them that would be amazing. The year-long term actually goes by very quickly when you are balancing it with all of our other student-ly duties... but I feel like we are motivated enough to make this work.

Back to studying my brains out... aka cramming as much into my brain as possible while minimizing sleep to the point where I can still function... it's a gentle see-saw.

Hope your saturday night is just as good as mine... A night filled with studying up on cerebellar dysfunctions, congestive heart failure, and treatment based approaches to the lumbar spine.

Spinal Cord Injury

Here is a quick review for me of what is affected at different levels of injury (everything below the level is affected as well, generally).

C1-3 - need a ventilator to breathe.
C4 - Diaphragm is in tact, cervical paraspinals are in tact thus more head control is present.
C5 - Use of biceps in tact.
C6 - Radial wrist extensors, pectoralis muscles are in tact, allowing for stronger horizontal adduction
C7-8 - Triceps, wrist flexion (C7), no hand intrinsics (that would be C8).
T6 and above leaves the possibility of autonomic dysreflexia.
T1-6 - Intercostals, hand intrinsics, long muscles of back, slight bit of abdominals in tact.
T7-12 - Abdominals in tact.
L1-S3 - Bowel and bladder problems can still be problematic.

I have ever so many finals left including one that covers the above mentioned material...

In other news there was a great article in The Boston Globe about how PT is emerging.

Lastly, the APTA SA BoD and Nom Com Orientation I went to the past weekend was a great success. I learned so much and was glad to be a part of the process. I have a lot more to say about the weekend but I am off to study some mo'. PEACE!

Off to Virginia

Leaving in a few hours to the APTA headquarters for the rest of the week. The funny thing is my total travel on the train to the airport plus flight time probably equals or exceeds the amount of time it would have taken me to drive to Virginia... if I had a car of course... oy... But I digress...

Television is a great way to distract oneself from studying non-stop. This website can give you the exact listings of what is on your tv (kind of like a tv guide online). Hope you can make use of it as I find it to be very helpful. Last night I happened to be watching Scrubs and caught one of those fun words from my cardiopulmonary class.

Cardiac tamponade is the compression of the heart caused by blood or fluid accumulation in the space between the myocardium (the muscle of the heart) and the pericardium (the outer covering sac of the heart). This can present as a heart attack but is not nearly as serious.

It is funny how many ideas me and my classmates pick up from the limited amount of television we are allotted.

Anyway, off to finish packing. Send me any suggestions you guys may want to see in the world of Physical Therapy as this is what we will be discussing for the next few days.

Women's Health

I am real tired, but wanted to make sure I got a post in before more busy-ness.

Firstly, I would like to use this forum to thank everyone who wished me a happy birthday.

Secondly, I wanted to share what we learned in class today. One of our lectures today was about women's health. This is a very sensitive topic for many women who may not have anyone else to talk to. It can be embarrassing and sometimes friends, boyfriends, husbands, family, even OB-GYN's or MD's may not be someone the woman is comfortable discussing these issues with. As PT's we can be another asset to these ladies especially since we are musculoskeletal specialists and many women's issues fall under this category. Not many people know that PT's can work with these conditions, but that's why we have blogs like this one...

Too tired to be more eloquent... or at least that's my excuse right about now... good night, off to study for my quiz on Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Stroke.

Health Tip for My Bday

Since I am getting older, all the way up to 23 now... I have to make sure I keep my brain "plastic". Not plastic like the material that makes up so many everyday items, but plastic like the ability to be shaped. I read this tip a few years ago and have been keeping up with it since then.

The tip is to try to do certain activities, my big one is brushing my teeth, with your non-dominant hand. Even when I start doodling in class I try to write with my non-dominant hand, which is a bit of a challenge. The idea behind why this is useful is that your brain is forced to open new or often neglected neural "wires". The younger you are the more likely you are to pick up the ability to use the non-dominant hand, but the older you are the more important it is for your brain to be active to avoid diseases like Alzheimer's, which is strongly linked to intellectual inactivity.

Well I am off to have a birthday full of studying and eating birthday cake with my left hand...