APTA National Conference this week in San Diego

This year the American Physical Therapy Association will be holding its national Combined Sections Meeting in San Diego. It should be another great year to go and enjoy presenting and listening to the latest and greatest in research in physical therapy. We are especially excited this year as we will be having over 15 separate poster and platform presentations from Rockhurst Faculty, current and former students. Below is only a partial list of topics:

The Effect of Body Position on Maximum Inspiratory and Expiratory Pressures
and Forced Expiratory Flow.

Neurodynamic Testing of the Upper Extremity.

Comparison of Lower Trapezius and Serratus Anterior Muscle Activation during Shoulder flexion under Three Hand-held Load Conditions in Young and Old Adults.

The Effects of Carbohydrate Supplementation on Measures of Gross Motor Coordination and Cognitive Function during Prolonged Aerobic Exercise.

Bent Knee Fallout.

The Effects of Core Stabilization in a Competitive Cyclist with Low Back Pain

Promote Active Learning Using The International Classification of
Function, Disability, and Health Model.

Does Short-Term Use of Dance, Dance Revolution Increase Motivation and Motor Proficiency of At-Risk Children and Youth?

Audiovisual Training with Motor Practice May Promote Postural Stability: A Pilot Study

Representing the ICF Model as an Electronic Ontology for Use in Physical Therapist Education.

Exploring Standardized Vocabulary Use for Physical Therapy Exercises: Practice and Perceptions.

Innovations in Physical Therapy: The Wii and Beyond.


I did not get a complete list of topics due to some faculty already being gone or in route to San Diego. I hope you can see the wide variety of topics and interests. It is a lot of fun and satisfying to be part of helping to understand physical therapy and to share that knowledge with the world.
Well, I am off to catch my flight. Let's hope we have beautiful, warm, San Diego weather....

Unique Clinical at Rockhurst

I think we have a really great PT program here at Rockhurst. All PT programs provide clinical internships or affiliations (known by many as clinicals) to their PT students. The students go and work in a clinical setting under direct supervision of a licensed physical therapist. A unique opportunity that we give to our students at Rockhurst is the option of choosing a very specialized clinical. We have a student currently who feels that he would like to end up teaching physical therapy one day, so we have given him the chance to have his last clinical in a faculty internship. He attends faculty meetings with us, has to plan and teach curriculum, and attend other meetings just as if he were part of our faculty. This week he has been doing some instructing in one of my labs. It is great to see him really thriving in his role as instructor. He is doing a great job and getting some really great experience that should benefit him in helping him decide if he really wants to continue with this goal and providing him with feedback for improvement and encouragement to continue.

A typical day in my life

People often mistake the number of classes taught with lack of work. When I tell them I am teaching two courses most assume that I am teaching for possibly a couple of hours every other day and sitting around the rest of time. Well, here is how my day went today (a typical day in my life):
7:00 am Arrived at Rockhurst (lots of parking available), Finalized agenda for Assessment Committee Meeting
7:35 am Worked on a Case Study for CSM presentation (CSM stands for Combined Sections Meeting. This is an annual meeting of the American Physical Therapy Association where researchers present and share their latest findings and generally enjoy coming together for a meeting of the minds and good camaraderie.)
9:00 am Interviewed a prospective PT Student
10:15 am finished interview, ran to bathroom (TMI), and collected materials for next meeting
10:30 am Musculoskeletal III Planning Meeting with Jim Dronberger, PT, DPT and Justin Trent, SPT and Gary Eichenberg, SPT our two graduate assistants.
11:00 am Assessment Committee Meeting with Drs. Jean Heibert, Jim Dronberger, and Brian McKiernan
12:00 pm Conference call with collaborators (Bob Latz, PT from Kentucky and Judy Deutsch, PT, PhD from New Jersey) to discuss and finalize our presentation at CSM in San Diego
1:00 pm Meeting with Brian McKiernan, PT, PhD to discuss computerized ontology mapping CAPTE objectives through the curriculum for our PT program
2:00 pm Worked on Poster for CSM
3:00 pm Met with Anne Pearce a faculty member from the Art Department to discuss collaboration on PT and Art Research/workshop
4:00 pm Worked on another poster for CSM
5:45 left Rockhurst
and I still have to edit a paper and study for the class I teach tomorrow AND I didn't even teach a single class today. I love my job.