While the world has made great progress in business and technology, healthcare is still lagging behind other major sectors. There are a lot of factors that cause stigma in this space, and the marginalization of people with pain is still rampant. In this episode, Alicia Emerson, PT, DPT, MS, OCS, FAAOMPT of High Point University joins Dr. Joe Tatta to discuss the attitudes, beliefs, and biases that contribute to the shortcomings of the healthcare industry. She explains the impact of sociopolitical factors on the perceptions of healthcare providers that make it harder for the vulnerable to get access to appropriate care. Dr. Emerson also presents the best ways to overcome these barriers and create a more inclusive and supportive environment for people with pain. Whether you are a healthcare provider, a caregiver, or someone who lives with pain, this episode offers valuable insights and practical tips for navigating the complex landscape of pain management.
Pain is one of the most common reasons for people to seek medical help. It's also one of the most difficult things to study. There's no clear way to measure it, and it can vary from person to person. But there are ways we can collect data on pain so that researchers can better understand how patients feel pain and what treatments work best for them. In this episode, Joletta Belton discusses how to integrate the lived experience of pain into treatment and research. Joletta explains how chronic pain affects people's lives, and how it can be used as a tool to help them heal. Joletta also talks about how you can use your own personal experience with pain to make better treatment decisions for other patients. Tune in now and learn what role you can play to help people in pain.
Chronic pain cannot be treated by simply focusing on its symptoms and root cause. Beyond these things are social determinants that directly impact health and disease. Most of the time, these can go back even from a person’s childhood. Dr. Joe Tatta is joined by Laura E. Keyser, PT, DPT, MPH to discuss how to embed such factors into the PT practice and education to vastly improve health treatment and patient experience. Laura explains how clinicians, educators, and research should focus on interdisciplinary collaboration and the impact of different social determinants in an individual’s lived experience. She also shares how PT practitioners can engage with the government and large corporations to provide better services by sharing all about her consulting firm, Mama, LLC.
We always hear the old adage, “you can’t pour from an empty cup.” This is especially true when you look at how we grow students to become practitioners. Before they can take care of and make a good impact on their patients and clients’ lives, they first need to take care of themselves. Tessa Wells, PT, DPT and Betsy Becker, PT, DPT, PhD from the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s Division of Physical Therapy Education have been implementing this. In this episode, they join Dr. Joe Tatta to discuss all about how they promote student wellness during their professional formation towards becoming DPTs. They talk about curricular interventions using a lifestyle medicine approach, taking wellness from the self to others to the community. Hear about their great program and how they impact the students of the profession and society at large. Tune in to this conversation to not miss out!
In this episode, we're discussing the concept of the embodied mind with internationally renowned author and psychiatrist, Dr. Thomas R. Verny. Our current understanding of the way the human body works is that it is a series of interdependent physiological relationships. No one component works alone or in isolation. But why is it that the accepted understanding of the physical phenomena of the mind is conventionally attributed only to the brain? The work of Dr. Verny is redefining our concept of both the mind and the human consciousness. He has brilliantly compiled a new list of research that points to the fact that the mind is tied to every single part of the body. This has enormous implications for how we view the mind, consciousness, and even human behavior. More specifically, it changes how we think about the experience of pain and pain management. Tune in and discover what it really means when we say the mind is a function of every system in your body.
Racism shows up in every aspect of our lives, and white body supremacy always finds a way to ingrain itself into our entire biology. Racial issues act as a persistent stressor that causes psychosocial distress, chronic pain, and even emotional trauma. Dr. Joe Tatta sits down with Lisa VanHoose, PT, PhD, MPH, FAAPT, FAPTA to discuss how racial embodiment impacts the vast healthcare system. She explains the best way to bring a social justice lens to physical therapy care in pain management and learn not to invalidate other people’s challenges with health disparities. Lisa also shares their work of decreasing implicit bias and advancing Black health and wellness through their organization, Ujima Institute.
Stress and burnout have been recognized in many health professions. Specifically, researchers have reported that many Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) students are actively experiencing moderate to high levels of stress each and every day. Joining Dr. Joe Tatta to discuss the topic in depth is Jason Cherry, PT, DPT, EdD. Dr. Cherry is an Assistant Professor in the Division of Physical Therapy at Binghamton University. In this episode, he shares the results of his study on the relationship between psychological flexibility, perceived stress and academic burnout in DPT students, along with practical applications on how professors in the field can model healthier behaviors as preventive measures. Tune in for more valuable insights as Dr. Cherry defines these concepts.
What really is the “healing process” for a trauma survivor? Many programs, exercises, and advice exist on how to deal with trauma, but do they really address its root cause? Or are they mostly surface-level techniques that only treat the symptoms, not the problem? In this episode, April Gamble, PT, DPT shares how to address trauma by its root cause and how she uses trauma-focused techniques to treat her patients suffering from pain, anxiety, or other effects of trauma. Bringing a bigger vision to the profession, she also shares with us her deeper work on justice and injustice and how they impact our beliefs and engagements with care. Filled with honest realizations and helpful trauma advice, tune in and learn how to start your healing process too!
How does language and logic impact the management and experience of chronic pain? Asaf Weisman, PT, Phd(c), joins Dr. Joe Tatta on the Healing Pain Podcast to discuss this topic. Asaf is a physical therapist, a PhD candidate, and a lab manager of the Spinal Research Laboratory at Tel Aviv University. He has 20 years of clinical experience as a full-time musculoskeletal physical therapist and studies musculoskeletal medicine, spinal health, as well as chronic pain. He discusses how language impacts pain, unpacks the positive and the negative aspects of cognitive approaches to chronic pain, and shares his thoughts around some of the more popular pain neuroscience analogies or metaphors and how they may not be so acceptable to people living with pain. Most crucially, he clearly defines pain as an experience and its relation to nociception. Tune in for more!
For physical therapy to be truly effective in addressing body pain, it must not only concentrate on structure alone. Instead, it must go beyond that and also involve the entire movement system. Dr. Joe Tatta sits down with the pioneer of this very concept, Shirley A. Sahrmann, PT, PhD, FAPTA. She explains how the movement system redefines physical therapy by classifying movement impairments into diagnostic categories. Sahrmann discusses how a kinesio-pathology approach can provide a better look into a person's psychosocial factors and produce a better diagnosis. The two also discuss how to dismiss PT stereotyping of being medical cheerleaders and the right way to navigate PTA's reimbursement cuts to their practice.
Contextualizing care is the process of adopting your treatment approach to a patient specific life context. The failure to do so is called a contextual error, which often results in a care plan that is not likely to achieve its intended aim or produce a positive outcome. In this episode, Dr. Joe Tatta discusses how to contextualize care for improved outcomes with Gail Jensen, PT, PhD, FAPTA, Vice Provost for Learning and Assessment, Dean Emerita and Professor of Physical Therapy at Creighton University. She is internationally regarded as a scholarly expert in clinical practice, clinical reasoning, professional ethics, as well as into professional education within and outside of the physical therapy profession. Join in for more powerful information.
Physiotherapists have a role to play when it comes to saving the environment. You can tell your clients to drive less. You can try to start influencing public policies to be more environment-friendly. There are a lot of ways physios can help save the degradation of the planet. Join Dr. Joe Tatta as he talks to Filip Maric, Ph.D., and Todd Davenport, PT, DPT, MPH, OCS. They discuss the state of the environment today when it comes to carbon emissions and environmental contaminations. Find out how you, as a physiotherapist can help save the environment. If you want to learn more, check out Integrative and Lifestyle Medicine in Physical Therapy, where Filip and Todd have a whole chapter dedicated to this. Find out how physiotherapy relates to the environment today!
Cardiovascular disease is the number one killer of both men and women in the United States. Despite its severity, it is still a preventable and reversible condition. Nolan Peacock, PT, DPT of St. John's Health joins Dr. Joe Tatta to discuss how primary care can better treat heart diseases through physical therapy. She explains why PTs must go beyond being movement experts and start providing lifestyle interventions to heart disease patients. Dr. Nolan discusses how this setup can help promote physical activity to the aging population and empower patients to actively improve their quality of life, all while keeping the impact of cardiovascular disease at bay.
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Pelvic girdle pain is typically caused by unevenly moving joints, making the bones less stable and mobile. Pregnant women often experience this painful sensation, but it must never be treated the same way as non-pregnant people. Dr. Joe Tatta reframes pregnancy-related pelvic girdle pain beliefs with Dr. Sinéad Dufour, Associate Clinical Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster University in Canada. She discusses why this chronic pain still has a lot of misconceptions and continues to be mistreated despite the mounting evidence around its psychosocial and physiological factors. Dr. Sinéad also explains how women can stay resilient throughout pregnancy by paying more attention to biomechanics than their individual (and potentially incorrect) beliefs.
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The relationship between autism and pain sensitivity is something that we have not covered in this show, mainly because it’s also a relatively new area in pain literature. How does pain management look like in cases where communication might be a challenge? Bethany Donaghy, MSc, BSc And Michelle Failla, PhD join Dr. Joe Tatta in this episode to explain. Dr. Failla is Research Assistant Professor in the College of Nursing at The Ohio State University whose research focuses on understanding the role of social communication in pain responses and management. Bethany is an autistic PhD student at Liverpool John Moores University, UK. Her current PhD project explores pain in autistic children and young people. Tune in and listen to the insights of two trailblazers in this emerging field.
Here are some links for two papers and a review on pain in autism:
• Increased pain sensitivity and pain-related anxiety in individuals with autism - PubMed (nih.gov)
• Initially intact neural responses to pain in autism are diminished during sustained pain - PubMed (nih.gov)
• Acute pain experience in individuals with autism spectrum disorders: a review - PubMed (nih.gov)
Michelle Failla’s website:
Michelle Failla | The Ohio State University College of Nursing (osu.edu)
If you have a need in the future, Michelle’s other line of work is in pain in Alzheimer’s Disease, and she works with a number of people trying to understand pain perception and differences in dementia. If that’s ever of interest to you and your podcast, reach out and Michelle can connect you with some great people in that work.
In today’s episode of Healing Pain Podcast, Dr. Joe Tatta is joined by Laverene Garner, PT, DPT, to discuss how to treat comorbid chronic pain, orthopedic conditions, and neurologic conditions. Dr. Gardner is a board certified neurologic clinical specialist, and currently works as an assistant professor in the Department of Physical Therapy at Winston-Salem State University. Prior to her role as professor, Dr. Gardner developed the vestibular therapy, mindfulness and integrated health components of a concussion recovery clinic at Camp Lajune, where she treated individuals with chronic neurologic conditions. On today's episode, we discuss how Dr. Gardner's passion for integrative healthcare shaped her early career and research interests, why exercise intensity matters in neurologic conditions, how to prescribe physical activity for individuals with neurologic problems, and a lot more.
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Diabetes is one of the fastest-growing chronic conditions affecting physical health, physical function, mental health and mental well-being. In the United States, most Americans are either prediabetic or diabetic, and most of them go undiagnosed. In this episode, Dr. Joe Tatta is joined by diabetes researcher and diabetes management expert Rupal M Patel, PT, PhD to discuss who a group-based culturally-tailored lifestyle intervention program can help in addressing the diabetes epidemic in the country. She discusses who she developed and tested a 12-week community-based group diabetes management program, which uses nutrition, exercise and other lifestyle interventions. Join in and learn about the results of Dr. Patel’s inquiry and how it can change the way diabetes is addressed by the healthcare system.
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It's one thing to experience tragic events in our lives and another to continue living life with trauma. If you are someone suffering from physical, psychological, and emotional trauma or someone who knows of anyone who is experiencing post-traumatic stress, this is the podcast for you. Richard Tedeschi, Ph.D., Psychologist and Distinguished Chair of Boulder Crest Institute for Posttraumatic Growth, talks about the concept of post-traumatic growth and how it differs from resilience. He also shares its five components and more about how trauma affects our heroes after rendering service. He gives us a glimpse into the programs that bring together veteran path guides to help train and support struggling veterans and their families to rediscover hope and purpose as they transition back to their lives out of duty.
Dr. Lance Mabry did a very large study with 4,800 subjects on the topic of a physical therapist's ability to refer for musculoskeletal imaging. This research shows that most people that are using imaging skills are not PTs. So the concept of the overutilization of imaging is not really correct. The imaging is instead being used inappropriately. More than 28% of PTs are actually using all nine imaging skills routinely. So there is definitely a say when it comes to opening diagnostic imaging across different states. Join Dr. Joe Tatta as he talks to Dr. Mabry about the findings of his recent study about imaging. Dr. Mabry is a board-certified orthopedic specialist and a Fellow of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Physical Therapists. Learn what skills you need as a PT when it comes to imaging. Start practicing those skills today so you can expand the rights of physical therapists around the world.
Pain is universal, and there should not be a language barrier to keep us from learning about it and healing. Join your host Dr. Joe Tatta as he talks with Tania Parker, PT, and Jolyane Aubé, BSc OT, about filling the gap in pain education for French-speaking Canadians. Tania graduated in physiotherapy from the University of Ottawa in 2004 with experience in acute care and home care, from pediatrics to geriatrics. Jolyane is a registered Occupational Therapist in New Brunswick, Canada. In this episode, they discuss how they help people with chronic pain to feel good again in their lives. Sharing studies, Tania and Jolyane reveal the effects of this healthcare gap among francophones when delivering essential pain education. As such, they offer a wide range of programs on chronic pain, education on pain management, and others. Tune in to learn more!
Pelvic health may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of women's health, yet it is an important issue that deserves attention. In today's episode, Theresa Feola , PT, WCS, PRPC, of Pelvic Room joins Dr. Joe Tatta. Theresa is a board-certified women's health therapist. She has served in clinical management roles throughout her career, but her clinical focus has been on the education and treatment of women's and men's pelvic health. Today, Theresa discusses the current state of women's health, the challenges women face in accessing appropriate pelvic health and physical therapy, and her creation and ongoing development of community-based childbirth and postpartum model called the Perinatal Partners Network.
Peripheral neuropathy is the result of damage to the nerves located outside of the brain and the spinal cord. People who have this condition typically suffer from persistent long-term pain as well as other symptoms. There is no shortage of conventional treatments for neuropathy, but these do not address the condition at its root. Over the years, integrative approaches have become more popular in treating both diabetic and chemo-induced neuropathy, and there is a strong evidence base to back their use. Heather Carlyle, PT, DPT, FIPSI, specializes in using integrative and lifestyle medicine in her physical therapy practice. Heather has a passion for helping people improve their quality of life in a natural way. She created Path to Less Nerve Pain , a hybrid online health education program that she developed to treat and reverse neuropathy. In this conversation with Dr. Joe Tatta, Heather discusses the different components of her program. She also talks about the causes of neuropathy, its symptoms, and the various traditional, complementary alternative and integrative medicine approaches that can be used for its treatment.
My guest is Dr. Anabela Silva. She is a Physiotherapist as well as an Adjunct Professor and the Director of the Physiotherapy Program at the University of Aveiro in Portugal. Her research interests include the effectiveness of pain, neuroscience education, exercise, and the exploration of factors associated with the onset of pain and the maintenance of pain in children and adolescents.
We'll discuss some of her recent investigations regarding pain and children and adolescents. We'll discuss the specific factors associated with the onset, the persistence of musculoskeletal pain in children and adolescents, and how to assess and identify these factors at an early age. Without further ado, let's begin and let's meet Dr. Silver and learn about pain in children and adolescents.
In my profession of physical therapy, the lack of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer-specific education has given rise to deficiencies in our cultural competence and our humility. When deficiencies exist in a profession’s educational system, as well as its continued education system, it can create a climate of discrimination and disparity. This ultimately leads to decreased access to health and effective healthcare.
In the context of chronic pain, which is what we discuss on this show, LGBTQ+ people are more likely to suffer from a long-term chronic pain condition than heterosexuals. To begin this episode, I would like to share with you a couple of reasons why this community or this population of people experience more pain before we meet our expert guests.
The first reason is that a larger portion of the LGBTQ+ community lacks access to health insurance or lives in poverty, more so than their heterosexual counterparts. They’re more likely to delay medical care or, at times, just forgo it completely because they can’t afford it or they simply just don’t have access to quality healthcare.
We are discussing the power of peer support and group learning and chronic pain recovery. My expert guest is Dr. Amber Richard Bauer. Amber is a doctor of Physical Therapy focusing on Chronic Pain Recovery and Pain Education. She's also a certified instructor for Empowered Relief and a facilitator for mental health ten-week virtual pain care program. Amber uses elements of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Pain Neuroscience, Education, and Mindfulness paired with her knowledge as a Physical Therapist to help clients recover from chronic pain and return to living meaningful lives.
Amber is a lifelong dancer and a believer in the power of the mind-body connection to heal from chronic pain, trauma, as well as illness. In this episode, you will learn about the benefits of group training for people with chronic pain, why it's important for people with pain to get support from other people, dealing with a similar condition, and the role of a licensed health professional in facilitating group care.
At the beginning of this episode, we talk about Amber’s journey, both her educational journey from being a dancer to a physical therapist through psychologically informed care and then back as well as her personal experience in living with and overcoming chronic pain, which we know is vitally important. Without further ado, let's begin and meet Dr. Amber Richard Bauer.
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