Diversity In PT-Helper’s Exercise Illustrations

When I first started PT-Helper, the idea was to help all physical therapy patients complete their home exercises. Our first exercises were represented by male models as our exercises were based upon my demo videos doing my own prescribed shoulder exercises from my separated shoulder injury and broken clavicle.

Even though I was the initial model for our exercises, I will readily admit that our illustrations are not an embodiment of my physical characteristics. Our graphic artist, principal illustrator and co-founder, Andrew Kwan, took artistic liberties and created a character with strong musculature that we felt would be appropriate for a health product.

Once we created a reference model for our male character, it was simple to continue creating exercise illustrations using our available model to add additional exercises, recommended by physical therapists, to our library.

As we attended several conferences, we started receiving requests to include female representation in our exercises which resulted in creating a reference model of our female character.

During the 2019 American Physical Therapy Association’s (APTA) Combined Sections Meeting (CSM), we were approached by a therapist that asked about African-American representation in our exercises, specifically for the Pelvic Floor section. We have since created a reference model for an African-American female character and have created additional exercises within the Pelvic Floor exercise library.

We will continue to expand our exercise library based upon recommendations from physical therapists and other health professionals. If you would like us to create additional exercises for your practice, please let us know at info@pt-helper.com.

We hope that creating a diverse set of exercise illustrations will help motivate all physical therapy patients to complete their home exercises and improve their outcomes.

Thank you,
Fred & Joan

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