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Choosing the Best Physical Therapist for YOUR Total Knee Replacement
28K views
Feb 27, 2022
Access is super important. Will you be able to reach your physical therapist after hours? Find therapists here: https://www.medicarehometherapy.com/ About the author: Hi, my name is Anthony (Tony) Maritato, PT. I am a licensed physical therapist and owner of Total Therapy Solutions. I have specialized in helping clients recover from total knee replacement surgery since 2002 and have created this video to help YOU. Total Therapy Solutions 5900 Long Meadow Dr Middletown, OH 45005 (513) 539-2886
View Video Transcript
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Hey guys, Tony Maritado here, licensed physical therapist
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And in today's video, I wanted to talk about access to your therapist and picking a therapist
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that you have access to. And what I mean by access is there are absolutely amazing therapists that work for hospital organizations
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One of the challenges there, though, is that you might not be able to always work with the same therapist
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Now, that could be a good thing or a bad thing. you might not have access to that therapist outside of normal business hours. So one of the
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trends that I see popping up more more frequently for smaller private practice clinics, similar to
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mine, is expanded accessibility, especially now that we have telehealth services as a covered benefit
0:48
under Medicare Part B. So as an example, I got a call while I was in the clinic on Friday
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an individual who I had treated previously, she was out to lunch with her husband
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she went to get up, she felt the pop, and then immediate pain in the backside of the knee
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that had been replaced. And I could hear the fear, I could hear the anxiety in her voice
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because I believe she was convinced that she had done something to damage the knee replacement
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Now, she had been discharged for several months. She had been doing wonderfully
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minimal pain great range of motion everything was great she just had this episode where she went to stand felt the pop in immediate pain So she knew that she had access to me because this part of the service that we deliver
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where she could call me, which she did. And we started to go through a series of questions
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You know, when I hear something like that, obviously the first thing that I want to do is I want to rule out any major red flags
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I want to make sure that the bone was intact, that the prosthesis was intact, the best that I could
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over the phone. And then once we kind of got past any real true emergent issues, then we can take a deep
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breath and we can try to dig a little deeper with better questions
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And so over the next five to ten minutes through deeper and deeper questioning, we kind of
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realize that, you know what, everything you're describing, everything you experience is
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consistent with a medial hamstring tendon injury, whether it be a sprain or a strain
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where she was feeling the sensation, what she was feeling, what produced the symptoms. As a
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typical example, if she was sitting in a chair comfortably, she was totally pain-free. She went to
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flex the knee. She could feel the tendon behind the knee with her hand, her fingers, and she
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could localize the pain to that location. If she was extending the knee pushing forward no pain until she got to end range which would be where that tendon gets stretched No pain at rest So a couple other special tests that I was able to describe and she was able to do kind of made both of us feel a little more comfortable
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to say, yeah, it sounds like it was a medial hamstring issue
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Let's give it a little time. Let's ice it a little bit
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Let's keep it mobile. Let's observe. We'll look for any swelling. We'll look for any bruising
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We'll look to see if the symptoms are getting better or worse. but we pretty much could rule out any red flags
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And then as part of the access, and this is where I'm talking about the benefit of working with specific clinicians
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is that she could reach me through a cell phone so that even when I was out of the clinic
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if she had an emergency or she had a question that night, the next day, which would have been Saturday
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she would have been able to just get me on the phone. you know and I think there's such huge value in the peace of mind to know that you have somebody in your back corner
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now I'm certainly not the only therapist that does this many many therapists across the country do this
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I tend to see it more frequently in smaller private practices than I do in larger hospital organizations
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part of the problem is that even if a therapist in a hospital setting wants to be able to provide that kind of accessibility
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they're usually not allowed to because of the governing body of the hospital organization
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So I would tell you you know when you picking your provider when you looking at the professional that you going to have in your corner you want to think of some of this stuff You want to hope for the best but plan for the worst What happens if this happens or that happens or I need to get
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somebody on FaceTime, you know, multiple times over the past couple years? I've had patients call
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with questions about their incision and they're able to take a picture of it, send it to me
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and I can reply to them. Whether we do it synchronous, meaning at the same time
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or we do it asynchronous where they send it to me, and then after I'm finished with my normal patient care
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I could reply. Whether we do it as a paid service that cost more than what the insurance will cover
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or as part of the current plan of care. There's lots of different ways that this kind of thing could work
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but I just want you guys to know that when you're interviewing your therapist
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to decide who you're going to work with, because you really should spend a little time to interview that therapist
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These would be some of the questions for you to consider asking. So as I wrap up, if you want more information about knee replacements
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about recovery, about therapy related to knee replacements, go ahead and check out this thumbnail right here
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see what YouTube is recommending for you to watch next. If you want other information from my channel specifically
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go ahead to the channel, search through the videos. I've got over 500 videos at this point that answer quite a few of the most common questions that people are asking
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And I just want to say thank you for supporting the channel. I'll catch you next time
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