24th May 2017
Sports & Spinal Physiotherapy are using TPM Pro’s objectivity to find out who’s been doing their exercise and to ensure they become the ‘go-to’ clinic in Essex for ‘Movement Health’.
Highly experienced clinician, Dan Smith, and his Sports & Spinal Physiotherapy clinic recently joined the ranks of TPM Pro. Based in Brentwood in Essex (UK), Dan takes some time to answer a few questions on his clinic and how TPM and the Movement Health approach is helping his business move forwards.
HOW LONG HAS THE CLINIC BEEN RUNNING?
We initially opened our doors in 2010, gradually expanding from a single practitioner business (me), up to the current team of 3 Physios, a Sports Therapist, and a Podiatrist.
WHO ARE THE CLINICS USUAL CLIENTELE?
As we are based within a busy gym facility with a large footfall, we have a broad client base; from 8 year olds to people in their 90s, but mainly we are working with individuals between 35 to 65, covering a wide range of conditions, both self-funded and insured. Personally, I specialise in backs and especially necks, often managing headache and migraine issues. We don’t really have the elite athletes but we have many people who are serious about their training and sport, such as distance runners and triathletes.
HOW HAS BECOMING TPM PRO CHANGED YOUR CLINIC?
As the system can be used for a range of ages and fitness levels we are finding we are still attracting the same groups but now we offer an objective measure to gauge progress. We have run a ‘Better Back’ programme for a long time but we are now offering the Low Back Matrix as a tool to show clients of improvements. It allows us to show the effectiveness of the exercise intervention we have designed and it also shows the client that, ‘if they do their exercise things do improve’. It supports adherence. If the report does not change it is often down to the patient’s failure to adhere to the recommendations.
The system has also allowed us to goal set more effectively with our clients, and it gives us another tool to identify to the client ‘you can’t run, yet or actually you can’. This has more weight because we can show them the report and discuss where the risk may still lie even though the symptoms are under control or have gone.
SUCCESS STORY
We are just starting to rescreen. Many of our patients come to see us for a different approach to their spinal pain. One such patient came to us with recurrent low back pain that was related to flexion related activities. Screening confirmed uncontrolled low back flexion and rotation and an overall score of 29/50. Over the next 12 weeks the patient was progressed through a series of exercises. Very quickly he started to feel better having less pain and improved function. The big positive for him was being able to pick his young daughter up without pain. When we rescreened him his score had reduced to 22/50. Not only was he now pain free but his re-screen showed measurable improvement in movement control giving him renewed confidence that his pain was less likely to recur.
WHERE DO YOU SEE THE CLINIC IN 2-5 YEARS’ TIME?
We will be double the size, both in staff and space. A bigger clinic. We want to become renowned in Essex as the go to place for a different, forward thinking approach. We certainly want to be dealing with more than just symptoms, managing people’s movement from pain to performance but also those without injury or pain. We want to ensure 50% of all clients are tested with TPM and we want to attract clients to Sports & Spinal because they have heard about the system TPM system that we use. In this day and age there is such much focus on subjective outcome measures, however we now have a reliable objective outcome measurement tool, that has significant evidence to support it use.
Click on the Sports & Spinal logo below to visit their website
