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

Weight Loss and Physical Therapy

Traditional physical therapy (PT) does an amazing job at treating dysfunction, pain, and problems. Preventative care and wellness, such as weight loss, was once taboo and often ignored by many physical therapists. However, today's Doctors of Physical Therapy (DPTs) are truly embracing more holistic treatments like nutrition, mindfulness, and sleep habits. Having physical therapy patients lose weight can help reduce inflammation, prevent health issues, and may improve PT outcomes. But what about stopping the weight gain in the first place? Weight gain prevention is vitally important, as it is much more difficult to lose the weight than it is to gain it. Given such interest in these topics, our team found it relevant to consider a recent study looking at weight gain and arthritis -- let's make the case for more PTs to start talking about patients preventing weight.

Arthritis and W...

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

There's always a blog or hot article on your newsfeed talking about a "miracle" nutrient or special vitamin. While many of these articles are complete clickbait or mere fluff to get you to buy their supplements, this article has some science and experience behind it. Now that we have that settled, I want to explore the one nutrient that I think has the biggest impact on clients with arthritis: fiber. 

Arthritis comes in several forms but the 2 most common types are osteoarthritis (OA) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA). We as physical therapists (PTs) often help clients with both of these diseases. From exercises, manual therapy, modalities, dry needling, and education -- our roles as PTs is to help our clients move better and reduce their pain. So, how does all this physical therapy talk for OA and RA fit in with fiber? 

Fiber is uniquely a plant-based product that is essentially indigestible to human guts. Fiber c...

Image: Obesity by Jesper Sehested using Creative Commons - (CC BY 2.0) 

Physical Therapists Should Be Promoting Weight Loss

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

Physical therapists (PTs) specialize in movement, exercise, and rehabilitation. Our role as healthcare providers extends into many facets  of life and wellness. From stress reduction to nutrition, PTs ought to consider interventions beyond the basic modalities.  Diet can have a substantial impact on weight loss and its commiserate reductions in pain and inflammation, and improvements in function. Regardless of what setting (e.g. outpatient, nursing home, acute care), PTs can educate patients on the benefits of weight loss and even provide simple steps to reducing weight. 

What are the best nutrition methods PTs can provide patients to reduce or even prevent obesity in the first place? A simple answer can be found in the literature centered on the Whole Food Plant-based Diet (WFPBD).

Obesity can be s...

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 who have...

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 begin to offer disease-specifi...