It’s a question I often get from fellow riders as well as in the clinic from patients on their very first visit! So let’s clear up some of that confusion.

Physical Therapy is a Doctorate Level profession. This education typically looks like a 4 year Bachelor’s degree followed by a 3 year graduate level education. This amount of schooling ensures that your physical therapist is a movement specialist and a musculoskeletal expert.

Most individuals associate Physical Therapy with musculoskeletal injuries or post operative care, but it is so much more! Physical Therapists can be found at a variety of healthcare settings including but not limited to: acute care, skilled nursing facilities, inpatient rehabilitation, emergency medicine, home health care, and outpatient care.

The majority of my clinical experience is in outpatient orthopedics but I have also spent time in the ICU, emergency room, geriatrics, and neuro rehabilitation settings. The experience I’ve had in those settings has shaped my clinical skills to make me the physical therapist I am today!

This page will be mostly to discuss Physical Therapy from a sports performance perspective. Please know that the knowledge base for physical therapy is wide and I think it’s important that we acknowledge the different aspects of this field in healthcare!

That is all in terms of human medicine though. How does physicla therapy apply to sports medicine in equine?

More to come!