PT Pintcast - Physical Therapy

Steve Gleason was given the Congressional Gold Medal, and that is a big deal.

We get to hear Steve accept his award in his own words, in his own voice. And that is a major reason that he’s being given this award.

Steve created and pushed through the Steve Gleason Enduring Voices act which made sure that persons with degenerative diseases would have access to Speech Generating Devices. Quite literally making sure that people living with ALS and other diseases never lose their voice.

Only 163 people in American history have been given this award and Steve is the first former NFL player to receive it. You might know him as a former football player that blocked a punt against the Falcons, but the reason you get a medal like this is because you put your head down and focus on a singular vision. And Steve and his team have done just that making sure persons with living with ALS and their families lead productive and purposeful lives.

Drew Brees spoke about is friend and former teammate at the ceremony in Washington D.C. Drew’s message was about watching Steve turn tragedy into triumph on the field, but most importantly off of the field.

If you hear this and are moved by his words and his Team we ask you to do all or some fo these three things:

1 – Donate to his organization @ TeamGleason.org

2 – Watch his Documentary, “Gleason.” It’s on Amazon and if you have prime it’s FREE!

3 – Follow them on social media to see and maybe join their TEAM helping those with ALS and their families live better lives.

On Instagram: @TeamGleason

On Twitter: @TeamGleason

“Finding ways to make life meaningful and purposeful and rewarding, doing the activities that you love and spending time with the people that you love – I think that’s the meaning of this human experience.” -SG

Krystyna Holland – Owner and Physical Therapist at Inclusive Care, LLC, Staff Physical Therapist at Denver Health – part of an Integrated Pelvic Health Team and a Post-Op Vaginoplasty TeamInclusive Care, LLC, Denver Health Hospital Authority

[email protected]

Twitter Handle@tynasaurusrex

Instagram@Krystyna.Holland

Dr. Krystyna Holland is a pelvic floor physical therapist whose journey to being a provider started as a patient. Frustrations with her own medical treatment drove her to open Inclusive Care, a physical therapy practice in Denver, Colorado. There she provides affirming care to individuals experiencing painful sex, and other pelvic floor dysfunction.

Pelvic Floor PT should be about more than decreasing pain – it should be about increasing pleasure; How to talk to patients about sex in a professional way

What being a patient taught me about the medical system and the way that providers mess it up

Providing affirming care – tips and trips for treating transgender, intersex and gender nonbinary clients

Pelvic Floor PT should be about more than decreasing pain – it should be about increasing pleasure; How to talk to patients about sex in a professional way.
Pelvic floor physical therapy often has the singular goal of decreasing pain with penetration, usually done with a specific approach of manual therapy, what people perceive to be trigger point release, and graded exposure to stimulus. For people who are having painful intercourse, their experience is made up of much more than their muscular tone – how can we bridge the gap from painfree to pleasurable professionally?

What being a patient taught me about the medical system and the way that providers mess it up We talk about patient behaviors such as anxious tendencies and pain catastrophization like they are inherent characteristics of the individual, not as coping mechanisms shaped by life experience. How can we increase patient engagement and improve outcomes for them by understanding (and explaining to them!) their behaviors and experiences as evolutionarily beneficial protective mechanisms in overdrive? Who is to blame and what is there to do when your patient isn’t responding as you expect?

Providing affirming care – tips and trips for treating transgender, intersex and gender nonbinary clients

There are huge healthcare discrepancies in care for members of the LGBTQIA+ community, especially the latter half – transgender, intersex, and gender non-conforming individuals. What assumptions are you (unintentionally!) bringing to the encounter, and how can you sidestep them to provide affirming care without doing harm?

• Pelvic Floor PT should be about more than decreasing pain – it should be about increasing pleasure; How to talk to patients about sex in a professional way – Sex is an ADL and we have nationally crappy education regarding what is “normal” and how to talk about it professionally.
• What being a patient taught me about the medical system and the way that providers mess it up – Providers typically got into the field to care for patients and help people. They often end up frustrated when they feel unable to assist and can’t put their finger on why. The expression of this frustration and, often, subsequent ambivalence, has long reaching impacts on the patient.
• Providing affirming care – tips and trips for treating transgender, intersex and gender nonbinary clients – Transgender healthcare has been shown in the research to be incredibly lacking; in providers that feel confident in providing care, in patients trusting providers to provide care, and in patients’ access to care. Normalizing and providing providers with tools to feel confident in unfamiliar encounters may be able to decrease the perpetuation of medical trauma in a population that is, statistically, already highly traumatized.
• People are trusting the medical system to help them and experiencing medical trauma instead. It’s happening to new moms, individuals with pelvic pain, people of color, LGBTQIA+ individuals, and other marginalized groups. We have to do what we can to stop it.
• It’s important not to assume that just because someone is your patient that they owe you anything – access to their body, following your ideal treatment plan as prescribed without their input, or intimate details of their life. Even if you want all of those things to help them, engaging people in a way that makes them feel in control and safe will: improve their outcomes, decrease their likelihood of experiencing medical trauma, and make your job easier.
• It’s important to trust people when they tell you about themselves – about their gender, about who and how they love, about what they need from you.

From SUCK to PSYCHED with Mathu Hanson