National PT Month Recap
October is National Physical Therapy Month. This year, we celebrated by sharing some of the best reasons to have a physical therapist on your design team. We appreciate everyone who’s been following along with our daily updates, and would like to wrap up the month with a recap highlighting all that we’ve shared over the past 31 days.
1. Fall Prevention: Falls are devastating at any age, but especially so as we get older. A physical therapist can help to identify fall risks in your home, and make recommendations to maximize your safety.
2. Medical Equipment: A physical therapist can help ensure you have the space needed to safely and effectively use assistive devices like walkers, wheelchairs, crutches, and canes.
3. The Unexpected: Accidents happen, sometimes resulting in life-long physical changes. A physical therapist can help you to prepare for (and recover from) these events by ensuring your home accommodates your individual needs.
4. Communication: Physical therapists have advanced training and significant real-world experience in interprofessional communication. We help to ensure that all members of your construction/renovation team are on the same page during each phase of your project.
5. Education: As a physical therapist and Certified Aging-in-Place Specialist, I am committed to yearly continuing education in order to better serve the needs of our clients.
6. Goals: By nature, physical therapists are goal-oriented. Our team will center the design of your space around your personal short- and long-term goals, and work our hardest to help you accomplish them.
7. Diagnosis-Specific Recommendations: A physical therapist can help interpret your medical diagnosis, including how it may impact the way you navigate your home.
8. Mobility Assessment: A physical therapist can analyze your strength, balance, gait pattern/wheelchair propulsion, and endurance in order to make the best recommendations for your specific needs.
9. Confidence: By maximizing safety and functionality, a physical therapist can help to improve your confidence while navigating your home. That self-assurance can translate to improved self-confidence in multiple areas of life!
10. Community Participation: When you have the ability to enter and exit your home safely and easily, you have more time and energy to spend doing the things you love. A physical therapist can help decrease the effort needed to navigate your home.
11. Value: Making your home more accessible will add value and increase the marketability of your home. Including a physical therapist in your project can help to maximize the return on your investment.
12. Multigenerational Homes: A physical therapist can help the Sandwich Generation, those caring for both their children and their parents, by making recommendations to benefit those of all ages and abilities.
13. Community Service. Physical therapists are dedicated to the overall health and well-being of our clients as well as our community. We are thrilled to be hosting a virtual food drive to benefit the San Antonio Food Bank. Join us here!
14. Prognosis. A physical therapist has the education and training to anticipate what your mobility needs may look like many years down the road. Our team will help to design a space that grows with you and accommodates both you current and future needs.
15. Avoiding Placement. When you have the security to safely age-in-place, you can avoid placement in a nursing home or care center. A physical therapist can address your individual mobility needs in order to keep you living at home for as long as possible.
16. Advocacy. Whether it’s to your contractor/designer/remodeling team or to your insurance provider, a physical therapist will advocate for your mobility needs during every step of the construction process.
17. Technology. Incorporating smart home technology into your home can improve safety and functionality for you and your loved ones. A physical therapist will help to seamlessly integrate these features into your space.
18. Products. When you are looking for solutions to help you keep participating in activities you love, a physical therapist can help to introduce lesser-known products (like this fantastic grill from Unisite Furniture) into your design.
19. Neighbors. The relationships we develop with those around us can become some of our most treasured. Physical therapists understand the value of that support system, and will for to make sure you can remain safely in your neighborhood as long as possible.
20. Teaching. Having a physical therapist on your team is not only valuable during the design and construction phases of your project. We can return after your updates are complete in order to teach you how to safely use your new space.
21. Funding. There are some grant funding opportunities available for accessible home renovations/remodels. A physical therapist can help to identify resources to offset the cost of your project.
22. Medically-Complex Children. When you love someone with a sensory processing disorder, you understand the importance of therapy as play. A physical therapist can help to accommodate your child’s sensory needs — with solutions like this sensory swing from La Siesta Hammocks!
23. Priorities. Whether your budget is $5K or $50K, a physical therapist will help to identify the most important upgrades to make from a safety/functionality standpoint. Our team will meet you where you are to come up with the best plan for your home, on your budget.
24. Flexibility of Use. A physical therapist can incorporate creative solutions (like this attractive pivot mirror from Pottery Barn) into your home. This mirror allows wheelchair-users and their ambulatory loved ones to share the same space with ease.
25. Sharing Meals. For many families, cooking together is a tradition that spans generations. If your goal is to return to independence in your kitchen, a physical therapist can help you create a space to accomplish that.
26. Holistic Care. Physical therapists are trained to see our patients/clients as people — not just a sum of their diagnoses. Our team will incorporate your physical needs, as well as your emotional and spiritual needs, into your project design.
27. Letter of Medical Necessity. Insurance companies don’t always help to offset the cost of an accessible home renovation, but our physical therapist will will work to advocate for your needs through a letter of medical necessity.
28. Saving Money. Some clients come to us needing updates made to an existing remodel that didn’t work for their specific needs. With a physical therapist on your design team, you can save money in the long term by avoiding future projects.
29. Balance. Because our team is solely focused on what works best for you and your loved ones, we are better able to make balanced and unbiased recommendations for your home. Our purpose is to make sure your space works well for what you need.
30. Caregivers. Whether paid or unpaid, family or friend, caregivers often become an integral part of aging-in-place. Implementing dual master suites or a casita/guest house into your design can serve your caregiver’s needs as well as your own.
31. Allowing Friends/Family to Enjoy. We saved our best, most important reason for last. Meet Marshall, Katie’s littlest brother and one of the driving forces behind why we do what we do. By and large, the world isn’t designed for those with different abilities. We love Marsh so much, and want to create spaces that he (and all of our clients) can thrive in. Above all else, this is our “why.”
In summary, including a physical therapist on your home design or remodeling team helps to improve value, increase quality, advocate for your health and well-being, anticipate your current and future mobility needs, and decrease cost in the long-term.
Thank you so much for celebrating PT Month with us! We hope you learned something new.
