By Dr. Sean M. Wells, DPT, PT, OCS, ATC/L, CSCS, CNPT® , NSCA-CPT, Cert-DN

Are you a physical therapist (PT) in Florida and want to offer the most modern, holistic physical therapy care by including nutrition? Who wouldn’t, right? But before you dive into offering nutrition advice you might need to know the requirements of PTs offering nutrition in Florida.

Before we jump too far ahead it’s important to understand that two different types of nutrition counseling exist: 

1.) general advice/recommendations for health/wellness; 

2.) nutritional advice specific to treat disease. 

1.) General Advice

Any healthcare provider, even PTs in Florida, with the proper education and training can offer general advice/guidelines for health and wellness. In other words, if you are a practicing PT in FL and a client asks you what a “healthy” diet looks like, you can certainly provide them general nutrition education and resources such as NutritionFacts.org,...

Top 3 Nutrition Resources for PTs

By Dr. Sean M Wells, DPT, PT, OCS, ATC/L, CSCS, CNPT, Cert-DN

Physical therapists (PTs) are unique healthcare providers. They are doctorally prepared, trained for direct and primary care, and work in a multitude of settings. Recently the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) released a new House of Delegate motion stating PTs ought to be more involved with nutrition care and should be trained and educated in nutrition further. Obviously the direct choice for nutrition care would be with a registered dietitian or nutritionist. But what if a PT has the training and legal right to provide nutrition care -- what resources does that PT have to provide optimal nutrition guidance? We will explore the top 3 nutrition resources for the PT!

NutritionFacts.org

Dr. Michael Greger established https://nutritionfacts.org/ with the intent of sharing evidenced-based nutrition knowledge for everyone -- for free! The lifestyle medicine physician has gone to...

Which Physical Therapists Should Get Nutrition Education?

By Dr. Sean M. Wells, DPT, PT, OCS, ATC/L, CNPT, CSCS, NSCA-CPT, Cert-DN

The role of doctors of physical therapy (DPTs) is getting larger and larger. Many States and countries outside of the United States now offer direct access to physical therapists (PTs). Such immediate access requires the PT to be a primary care provider with a wide range of knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs). Moreover, many PTs that are part of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) Council on Prevention, Health Promotion, and Wellness (PHPW) or that have participated in courses offered by the Institute of Clinical Excellence (also known as PT On ICE) will tell you the importance of social determinants of health (SDOH). SDOH often have a much bigger impact and role in health and functional outcomes than medical care. One such SDOH that plays a major role in disease development, prevention, and treatment is nutrition. DPTs are seeing this...

Population Health and Nutrition: A Tool to “Transform Society”

By Dr. Sean M. Wells, DPT, PT, OCS, ATC/L, CNPT, CSCS, NSCA-CPT, Cert-DN

Recently our editor of the Physical Therapy Journal (PTJ), Alan Jette, highlighted a recent article that took a focus on a Framework for Population Health for physical therapists (PTs). Population health considers the health and outcomes of a group of people, and how those health outcomes are distributed within the population. The view of population health is much broader and encompasses not just quality of life and health but also the interplay of the social determinants of health (SDOH), such as individual behavior, healthcare, physical environment, genetics, and social environment. Before we dive into how PTs, using such a framework, can transform society, here’s a great diagram to demonstrate the encompassing view and interplay of population health:

Source: ...

Enhancing Your Physical Therapy Business with Nutrition

By Dr. Sean M. Wells, DPT, PT, OCS, ATC/L, CNPT, CSCS, NSCA-CPT, Cert-DN

Physical Therapists (PTs) can easily add nutrition to their practice. Doing so can improve patient outcomes, provide a “stand-out” service versus other local providers, and offer an increase in revenue. Incorporating nutrition into physical therapy practice is recognized in the “scope” of PTs by the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) and makes good business sense. Several of our other blog posts highlight the why and how PTs should offer nutrition and what the APTA and practice acts say about PTs offering nutrition, but this article is going to focus solely on the business side of PTs providing nutrition.

Adding nutrition services to PTs running cash-based practices is a must. The biggest standout item within cash-based PT practices is that the client pays, not insurance. As such, you as the provider only have to justify...

As physical therapists (PTs), we are far removed from the delivery room. Many of us help women after delivery through relieving post-delivery trauma, core strengthening, or general wellness to return to pre-pregnancy function/fitness status. Many of us also help women struggling with lower back pain, plantar fasciitis, and other ailments prior to delivery. A few of us also work in the neonatal intensive care and hospitals helping newborn children.  We also have large section of our professional organization, the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA), dedicated to helping children through pediatric PT. As such, we as PTs are nicely positioned to help counsel women and families on how to optimize delivery, recovery, and possibly infant and children's nutrition.

In The Womb

Many ailments and complications can arise during pregnancy. From lower back pain and posture issues, the musculoskeletal issues appear to be very straight forward for PT management. But...

Most physical therapists (PTs) routinely measure the vital signs. Heart rate, blood pressure, pulse oxygen, respiration rate, and often pain. But what about diet? Should diet be another vital sign? In the opinion of many scientists and medical experts diet ought to be a major vital sign that is measured by not only registered dietitians (RDs) and/or medical doctors (MDs), but also healthcare providers like PTs, on a routine basis.

What evidence do we have to say that diet ought to a basic vital sign? How about the fact that diet is the single leading predictor variable of all major health outcomes? The vast majority, roughly 80% according to the literature, of our diseases in the modern world are preventable and are caused by a poor diet. From cardiac disease, cancer, diabetes, and stroke, the injuries and diseases that lead to a patient ending up in a physical therapy clinic are likely preventable, if not reversible. 

But how does a PT measure diet as a vital sign? Many PTs...

It’s not often our team at Nutritional Physical Therapy gets excited about movies; however, a recent movie has got the whole team excited: The Game Changers.

The Game Changers will change the sports, physical therapy (PT), athletic training, and strength and conditioning world. James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jackie Chan are the producers, along with the elite athletes of Lewis Hamilton, Novak Djokovic, and Chris Paul helping out.  The movie has been currently endorsed by the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, the Special Operations Medical Association (SOMA), the Defense Health Agency (DHA), and the Green Sports Alliance. Hopefully with enough momentum we can see the likes of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA), the National Athletic Trainers’ Association (NATA), and the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) join the endorsement ranks.

The movie features James Wilk, special operator trainer and UFC fighter, on a mission to share...

Top 3 Nutrition Tips for Neuro PTs

By Dr. Sean M. Wells, PT, DPT, OCS, ATC/L, CSCS, CNPT, NSCA-CPT, Cert-DN

Physical therapists (PTs) are unique, doctorally-prepared health care providers who work often one-on-one with their clients several times per week. As direct access and primary care providers, PTs can help patients get better functionally and holistically through exercise and dietary interventions. Whether you are a PT working in a hospital or fitness gym, you will encounter patients that have neurological deficits. While most PTs have the go-to physical interventions many struggle to conjure up ways to help these patients with nutritional tips. Below our team at Nutritional Physical Therapy will outline how PTs can offer nutritional tips to patients with neurological deficits.

#1 Reduce Alcohol

Having an ice-cold beer or a glass of wine may be a great way to end a hectic day; however, research has shown that those that have neurological issues may be best to steer clear of...

My State Bans PTs from Providing Nutrition. What Do I Do?

 By Dr. Sean M. Wells, DPT, PT, OCS, ATC/L, CSCS, CNPT® , NSCA-CPT, Cert-DN

So you’ve looked into several online courses for nutrition in the hopes of helping your patient get better, faster. As you are scouring these online classes you stumble across the fact that you, as a physical therapist (PT), cannot provide nutrition in your state. Seriously? Is this true? Maybe. So, should you simply drop the idea of enrolling into a certification course on nutrition -- absolutely not!

 It should be made very clear that any healthcare provider can offer nutritional information for general health. Whether you call yourself a nutritionist, CNPT® , or health coach, offering generalized health and wellness nutrition information is permitted for almost every state. Such a rationale makes perfect sense: we need people in our country eating better food for better health. The legal issue really comes when you...