The continuing education world for physical therapy is flooded with different techniques to help treat one specific problem or injury.  But traditional physical therapy has been plagued by the same problem the western medical community has been stricken with, over specialization. 

When we focus on treating symptomology instead of the person, how does it affect our overall care? If the problem is shoulder pain and the treatment is to strengthen the area, massage it, and use different modalities to reduce inflammation, is this the best course of treatment? What if the shoulder is impinged due to a tilt in the pelvis that is rolling the shoulders forward causing the pain and impingement?  In this case doing the rehabilitation on the shoulder alone wouldn’t work and potentially cause more problems by strengthening that person into the injury. The new trend in Physical Therapy continuing education is a whole body approach to injuries. The therapist will run the patient through their normal evaluation but instead of only focusing their treatment on where the pain or script is directed, they look at the whole body and structure.  

By discovering and addressing the root cause of the problem, instead of just the symptom, results related to reduction in pain and increased range of motion are seen faster while greatly reducing the duration of time needed for ongoing treatment. When we start treating our patients and clients like people instead of body parts and conditions it’s amazing what we can accomplish.