Brain and Body Rehabilitation

Clearly, we can all have our own definition of what it looks and feels like to be fit. We set expectations for ourselves and others – potentially imposing different criteria on ourselves than we do for others. Our definition of fitness may evolve as we age with elevated and lower expectations in different phases of […]

Perhaps you recall the 1977 Queen song that I have clearly referenced in this subject line. Because of the unique combination of repetitions, some social pressure (“C’mon everyone knows this song”), and some pleasure (episodic memories of your team in the lead)…you may never forget the chorus to this tune. What about your memory for […]

A foreign language, a recipe, how to spell a word without autocorrect, your Netflix password, a high school classmate, your first license plate, and…spinal flexibility. What do these have in common? You guessed it. We can experience “learned non-use” with any of these – memories or movements. In a sense, when our daily mobility becomes […]

Call it exercise if you like, physical activity if you prefer…but movement and more of it…is medicine. We have known this for some time and continue to prove it every day with more scientific evidence. How do we make movement easier, though? More approachable. Less burdensome. On Friday, January 27th, I will tackle this very […]

Imposter syndrome aside, I often question my skills as a PT. I am less than average in manual PT skills. My professional career passion has been unknowingly focused for some 32 years on one element that is now popularized by many different phrases: therapeutic alliance, patient engagement being the two most common. This, if anything, […]

Multitasking is bad. Dual tasking can be challenging, dangerous, or therapeutic. Right? Multi-tasking (MT) is entirely different than DT. We do know this to be true. By definition (McIsaac, Plummer 2015) DT requires simultaneous operation of two discrete tasks. It APPEARS as though most people MT by task-switching. Task-switching across 3 or more tasks simply […]

As I alluded in Part II of the Functional Reserve series, it is now time to address endurance. Endurance comes in two commonly-recognized forms: muscular endurance and cardiopulmonary endurance. We see these most commonly expressed through endurance events (marathon, triathlon) and using associated muscular (repetitions to fatigue at a given resistance) or aerobic performance measurements […]

As noted, August is my functional reserve month. Take time this month to give yourself an extra dose in fitness of all forms. In Part I of this concept, I wrote about cognition, with 4 aspects expressed in more easily understandable language, being: hold, recall, process, and generate. Be mindful of the subtle message that […]

No, this is not a soliloquy on the timing of the stock market. This is a call for comprehensive inventory-of and programming-for your wellness. Many people are thinking about their “steps per day” as this can be convenient to track, compare, and gamify. Some are becoming more aware of the need for strength training as […]

In health, wellness, and in rehabilitation, we must learn to “control the controllables”. While this may seem like a play-on-words or retooling of a serenity prayer (accept what we cannot change; courage to change what can be changed; wisdom to know the difference), it should be accepted more literally and adopted more uniformly. This means […]