News and Events

FACULTY IN THE NEWS

Faculty Deborah Thorpe was recently featured in The News and Observer Sports Section.
Click below to read the article:
http://www.newsobserver.com/122/story/500231.html

APTA Advanced Practice Clinical Courses

Registration Form

2008 APTA Advanced Clinical Practice Courses

Courses hosted by UNC-Chapel Hill

MARCH 29-30, 2008

Cash Practice: Breaking Down the Barriers and Positioning Your Practice

Speakers: Jennifer Mahler Gamboa, PT, DPT, OCS, MTC; Nancy T. White, PT, MS, OCS

Course Description: This course will present a business model and the rationale for a full-spectrum cash-based musculoskeletal health, wellness, and rehabilitation clinic. Participants will learn specific strategies for overcoming roadblocks, as well as designing, marketing, and implementing health promotion, fitness, and wellness services. The model and strategies presented are based on the speakers’ own experience in a successful, full-spectrum cash practice in Arlington, VA.

Objectives:

Understand the rationale and economic factors supporting a cash practice model.
Be able to identify and develop solutions for impediments to cash practice and the integration of health promotion, fitness, and wellness services.
Understand a specific model for developing, marketing, and implementing cash based rehabilitation, fitness, and health promotion service lines.
Be able to implement above model for specific cash services in participants’ area of interest/expertise.

MAY 31-JUNE 1, 2008

Assessment and Management of Overweight Patients/Clients at Health Risk

Speaker(s): Reed Humphrey, PT, PhD; Steve Tepper, PT, PhD

Course Description: The purpose of this course is to provide clinicians with a comprehensive overview of endurance assessment with special reference to clients who are at elevated health risk due to excess body mass. In addition to differentiating assessment and therapeutic issues, the course will focus specifically on the development of a contemporary approach to the management of this client population, utilizing evidence-based research to guide the development of assessment and treatment plans.

Obesity is reaching epidemic proportions in both children and adults in the US. The complex array of problems associated with obesity may negatively affect our patients' rehabilitation potential, their ability to participate in fitness activities, and reduce chronic disease risk. This course provides a comprehensive and realistic approach to the management of clients with excess body mass, with special emphasis on the various approaches to endurance assessment in clients with diminished function. In addition, the course will focus specifically on the development of a contemporary approach to the management of patients, utilizing evidence-based research to guide the development of assessment and treatment plans.

Objectives:

Describe and classify overweight and obesity in children, adult and geriatric populations.
Describe the prevalence and other important epidemiological trends of overweight and obesity for age, gender and ethnic groups in the United States.
Describe the association of excess body mass and risk of musculoskeletal and chronic disease risks, with particular reference to metabolic syndrome.
Identify and evaluate laboratory and practical approaches in the assessment of exercise endurance, body mass and composition.
Evaluate the evidence for available exercise intervention strategies and the relative effectiveness of exercise – only and combined diet plus exercise approaches.
Utilize common risk factor analyses to assess risk of common diseases and spreadsheets for body mass index, endurance tests and caloric expenditure for activities.

SEPTEMBER 20-21, 2008

Evidence-Based Practice in Your Clinic

Speaker(s): Marc Goldstein, PhD, David Scalzitti, PT, MS, OCS

Course Description: Evidence-based practice is here to stay! Are you asking yourself some of the following questions:

How do I sort through the enormous (and exponentially growing) amount of literature that is available and decide what is useful and what is not?
What tools exist to help me answer clinical question about my patients?
How do I decide how confident I am in my answer to the clinical question about my patient?

If so, you're not alone! Take one day to learn how to ask the right clinical questions to, perform powerful on-line searches effectively, and use cutting- edge evidence-based practice principles in order to make informed decisions about your patient's care. Upon completion of this course you will not only be able to answer the questions posed above, but also take away powerful tools you can use in your clinic to help your patients, educate your students and colleagues, and influence 3rd party payers, and still have time to treat your patients. This is a “must-have” course for all clinicians to use internet research effectively. Participants will bring a patient case to be used in the course exercises. Internet hook up provided.

Upon completing this course, you’ll be able to:

Ask an answerable, patient-oriented clinical question about treatment.
Perform an electronic search of the literature in 10 minutes or less.
Scan numerous articles and identify which ones really matter in 10 minutes or less.
Use an accepted scheme to judge the quality of a patient-oriented research article in 10 minutes or less.
Summarize the answer to your question in an easy-to-read and understand format.
Learn how to appraise and integrate your clinical experience, expert recommendations, the best external evidence available, and your patient's values into making the best clinical decision possible regarding the care of your patients.
Integrate resources available from APTA to the application of Evidence-based practice

DATES: TBA

Health Promotion and Wellness: Expanding Your Practice Paradigm

Speaker(s): Janet R. Bezner, PT, PhD, Beth Black, PT, MS, MarySue Ingman, PT, MS

Course Description: The number of people who practice healthy behaviors regularly is alarmingly low, leading to chronic diseases that have become a primary cause of death and disability in the U.S. Most of these diseases are preventable with a variety of interventions that physical therapists employ everyday. How do you motivate your clients to participate in prevention and wellness efforts? How do prevention and wellness approaches differ from traditional physical therapist or biomedical approaches? Should they be different? What constitutes a wellness program and how can you build one that will be successful and contribute to reducing the burden of chronic disease for your clients and society? These issues will be explored in this course as well as others related to the development, marketing, implementation and assessment of health promotion and wellness programs.

Objectives:

Differentiate among the terms prevention/health promotion/health education/risk reduction/wellness/quality of life.
Describe wellness theory and compare it with a biomedical model.
Identify, apply, and interpret measures of wellness and quality of life.
Apply theories of behavior change to individuals and populations using an evidence-based approach to enhance motivation and adherence.
Identify and describe the multilevel influences on a patient’s/client’s health consistent with an ecological model.
Incorporate health promotion and wellness concepts into the physical therapist patient management model.
Increase personal self-efficacy to promote wellness with individual patients, within individual practices, and within society.

Link to the ACP website for APTA (where people register)

http://www.apta.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=ACP&Template=/TaggedPage/TaggedPageDisplay.cfm&TPLID=122&ContentID=15690