How to Introduce the PT-Helper Tools to Your Team of Physical Therapists

The benefits of the PT-Helper mobile app to help your patients complete their home exercises (improving compliance and resulting in better outcomes) will help motivate your staff to try out PT-Helper’s web-based exercise prescription solution, CONNECT.

A short example of the mobile app in use is shown below.

Benefits of PT-Helper mobile app for the patient are:

• No more exercise papers to deal with
• Always have their prescribed exercises with them
• Up to 3 daily reminders to do their exercises
• Counts hold times, repetitions and sets
• Walks them through their complete home exercise program (HEP)
• With a free 30-day trial, there is no financial risk to trying out PT-Helper CONNECT. 

The simple-to-use interface of CONNECT makes it easy to learn how to add patients and add exercises to their personalized treatment plan. Using their preferred browser, your staff can login and quickly start adding patients and exercises.

Simply selecting , entering the patient’s first and last name will create the patient’s profile.

Then select to enter the treating therapist, location and injury.

Once these fields have been completed, select to view our exercise database and to select exercises to add to the home exercise plan.

CONNECT allows the therapist to change the parameters of each exercise such as hold times, repetitions and sets. It also allows the therapist to add unique comments to each exercise selected to customize the instructions for each patient.

CONNECT also allows therapists to modify existing exercises or add their own exercises to the database with unique pictures and instructions. These exercises are private to the therapist’s group and not shared with other therapists. No more need to hand-draw pictures or repeated re-write instructions.

In addition, protocols can be created simplifying the process of finding and adding exercises to treatment plans.

An added benefit to the therapist is an exercise history log for each patient, which records when the patient completes an exercise on the mobile app.

Start your Free 30-day Trial of the PT-Helper CONNECT exercise prescription tool today!

A PT Home Exercise Program for Golfer's Elbow Injury from the Summit Medical Group

Despite the cold temperatures and nor’easter storms lashing the eastern seaboard, spring and warmer weather will be here soon providing us the opportunity to enjoy outdoor activities. Unfortunately, a dormant winter season followed by robust activity often leads to injuries. A common warm weather injury is Golfer’s Elbow. A suggested physical therapy treatment plan is shared by Summit Medical Group.

We have curated nine exercises from their Medial Epicondylitis Rehabilitation Exercises sheet  into a Home Exercise Program (HEP) using the PT-Helper CONNECT platform and presented on the PT-Helper mobile app.

These sample exercises can be quickly downloaded into the PT-Helper mobile app using

HEP code: 4D629988

You can also find these exercises in the Wrist and Elbow category in the PT-Helper mobile app to add to your Favorites which allows you to customize each exercise’s repetitions, sets, and hold time.

Reminder: Please consult your physician before engaging in any physical activity and stop if you experience pain or discomfort.

EXERCISES INCLUDED:

1. Wrist Flexion/Extension:
Bend your wrist forward as far as you can and hold. Bend your wrist backward as far as you can and hold. Repeat.


2. Wrist Extension Stretch:
Keeping elbow straight, palm faces down and use other hand to grasp the back of hand. Slowly allow wrist to bend, pull back of hand down until stretch is felt in forearm. Hold. Relax to starting position.


3. Wrist Flexion Stretch:
Keeping elbow straight, grasp palm side of hand and slowly bend your wrist backward until a stretch is felt on underside of forearm. Hold. Relax to starting position.


4. Forearm Pronation/Supination:
Extend your hand palm up and slowly rotate your hand onto a palm down position until a stretch is felt. Hold. Slowly rotate your hand onto a palm up position until a stretch is felt. Hold, then repeat.


5. Eccentric Wrist Flexion:
Hold a weight in the hand of your injured side with your palm up. Use your other hand to bend your wrist up. Release your injured hand and use just your injured hand to lower the weight slowly back to the starting position. Repeat.


6. Eccentric Wrist Extension:
Hold a weight in the hand of your injured side with your palm facing down. Use your other hand to bend your wrist up. Release your injured hand and use just your injured hand to lower the weight slowly back to the starting position. Repeat.


7. Ball Grip Strengthening:
Hold a soft rubber ball in your affected hand. Squeeze the ball and hold. Briefly relax your hand. Repeat.


8. Forearm Pronation/Supination Resisted:
With your forearm supported on a table and your palm down, grasp an object and gently rotate your palm up as far as possible. Then gently rotate to palm down as far as possible.


9. Bicep Curl:
Stand in good posture with arm straight, palm forward, holding a weight or pulling on a exercise band secured to the floor. Bend elbow curling hand up towards shoulder. Pause then slowly lower to starting position. Keep elbow fixed at your side during the exercise. Your therapist may have you alternate arms.

GOLFER’S EXERCISE DEMO, AS VIEWED ON THE PT-HELPER MOBILE APP 

Start your Free 30-day Trial of the PT-Helper CONNECT tool for physical therapists and other therapy providers, so you too may create and prescribe Home Exercise Programs like the one shown above.

Click here to view Wrist & Elbow exercises currently available within the PT-Helper Exercise Library.

How To Add Your Own Exercises to PT-Helper

At the American Physical Therapy Conference (APTA) Combined Sections Meeting (CSM) in New Orleans in Feb 2018, we received very positive responses to the PT-Helper mobile app for patients as well as our online exercise prescription service, CONNECT, for therapists.

One of the common questions we received was, “Can therapists create their own exercises?”

The answer is YES!

Creating Exercises on CONNECT

Therapists can create their own unique exercises on CONNECT that they can prescribe to their patients. These exercises will be private to the therapist’s account and will not be shared with other CONNECT subscribers.

To create and manage your private exercises in CONNECT, select (1) Settings on the pull-down menu at the top right of the screen, select (2) My Exercises, and then select (3) Add Exercise.

 

This will bring up the Add Exercise form to enter the exercise name, description, default exercise parameters, and exercise images.

Many of the PT-Helper exercises use three pictures to define an exercise: Start/Rest position, Concentric motion (or Hold position for stretches), Eccentric motion (or Recovery position for stretches). Quite frequently, the Start/Rest position will be the same as the Recovery position. We also have the ability to add Support images for more detailed motions or to improve understanding of the exercise sequence.

An example of an exercise created by a therapist on CONNECT is the Golf Reach Thru exercise by BreakOut Advisors and Rehabilitation with the images shown below. A little digital processing by PT-Helper was done to remove the background and to add some arrows resulting in a very clean sequence of pictures that their patients/clients can easily follow.

Creating Exercise on the Mobile App

In addition to creating exercises on CONNECT, it is possible to create exercises locally on the patient’s smartphone using the PT-Helper mobile app. This may be useful for individualized exercises that will not be prescribed to different patients or in the home health space where the therapist needs to create an exercise based upon the restrictions found in the home.

To create an exercise on the mobile app, select Exercises By Category from the app’s home page and then select Create An Exercise. This will bring up a form where you can specify the name, category, description, and exercise parameters.

Adding Video or Photos to the Mobile App

Once any exercise is added to Favorites or is part of a prescribed Home Exercise Program (HEP), you can use the camera symbol 

located at the top left of the screen to take pictures or videos. You can take videos of your patient doing their exercises while giving verbal cues on how to do it properly. Since these pictures or videos are not exported by PT-Helper, they will remain private on the patient’s phone.

Watch the short how-to video below to learn how to add pictures or video to the PT-Helper mobile app.

Start your Free 30-day Trial of the PT-Helper CONNECT tool for physical therapists and other therapy providers, so you too may create and prescribe HEPs that can easily be synchronized with the PT-Helper mobile app.

PT-Helper's February Blog Posts for Physical Therapists

How to Introduce the PT-Helper App to a Patient

Published on February 6th, 2018

With patient home exercise compliance at extreme lows, understanding what motivates your patients will help improve their home exercise compliance. Not everyone is the same and getting them engaged requires understanding what motivates them. Decreasing the hurdles that prevent them from doing their home exercises with the PT-Helper mobile app while letting them know that they're being observed may further improve their behavior.

A PT Home Exercise Program for a Hip Injury from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons

Published on February 13th, 2018

We’ve curated these seven exercises, shared by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, into a Home Exercise Program (HEP) using the PT-Helper CONNECT tool and prescribed via the PT-Helper mobile app. A sample HEP program can be evaluated on the PT-Helper mobile app with code 45242F3C.

The Unexpected Ways to Lead a Physical Therapy Patient to Recovery

Published on February 20th, 2018

Creating a fun and supportive environment is one way to motivate your patients to do their home exercises resulting in better outcomes. Establishing a new exercise habit for your patients can lead to consistent behavior.

Subscribe to the PT-Helper Blog here so you don’t miss these helpful compilations and BONUS, you’ll receive Our Secret Guide, unveiling the secrets your patients are keeping from you.

The Unexpected Ways to Lead a Physical Therapy Patient to Recovery

A large number of people will see a physical therapist for the first time after an illness, injury or surgery. They will often be in pain with limited mobility and strength. It is often assumed that the patient wants to get better and that this is sufficient reason that will drive their self motivation to recovery.

However, when the road to recovery for physical therapy patients includes home exercises to improve range of motion and physical strength, these exercises are often never completed.

How does one overcome this hurdle?

One of the challenges is to recognize that many patients do not have a regular exercise routine. In the 2014 CDC Report on Physical Activity, 1 in 4 Americans never exercise at all and only about 50% of the national population meet the minimum aerobic exercise guidelines. Getting your patient to do their home exercises will be a process of creating a new habit.

According to experts, it takes about 21 days to form a habit. In “7 Steps to Developing a New Habit”, Brian Tracy identifies the first step as Making a Decision. This decision has to be made by the patient and not by the therapist. Asking your patients to make this decision and having them verbalize this decision and why it’s important to their health will be a big step towards home exercise compliance.

Another point to recognize is that it is better to exercise with a friend which may be why patients will do their exercises in a clinic or gym environment but not at home. The sense of accountability while they are in the clinic drives their behavior. Of course, they can’t go to the clinic everyday. To help extend accountability to their home exercises, you can help them set a time during the day when they need to do their home exercises.

Creating a fun environment can also motivate your patients to do their exercises. 

One clinic that deals with a lot of young ACL surgery patients has a large bell that the patient gets to ring when they are able to bring their heel to their butt. It creates a reward mechanism for the patient and allows other patients to share goals in their recovery process.

Technology can also be used to increase patient compliance. In a recent study by the Pew Research Center, 77% of Americans now own smartphones.  Smartphone home exercise program (HEP) apps can help your patients remember when to do their exercises and walk them through their exercises alleviating the burden of counting hold times, repetitions and sets. The PT-Helper mobile app will also keep track of when your patients complete their exercises providing you with the opportunity to extend accountability for your patients.

Start your Free 30-day Trial of the PT-Helper CONNECT tool for physical therapists and other therapy providers, so you too may create and prescribe HEPs that can easily be synchronized with the PT-Helper mobile app.

A PT Home Exercise Program for a Hip Injury from the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons

We have curated seven exercises from the Hip Conditioning Program shared by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons into a Home Exercise Program (HEP) using the PT-Helper CONNECT platform and presented on the PT-Helper mobile app. These exercises may help you return to daily activities after a hip injury or surgery.

Exercises can also be used pre-surgery to strengthen your muscles which can help you with a speedy recovery.

These exercises can be quickly synchronized with the PT-Helper mobile app using

HEP code 45242F3C. 

You can also find these exercises in the Knee & Hip category in the PT-Helper mobile app to add to your Favorites which allows you to customize each exercise’s repetitions, sets, and hold time.

Reminder: Please consult your physician before engaging in any physical activity and stop if you experience pain or discomfort.

EXERCISES INCLUDED:

1. IT Band Stretch 


From a standing position, cross your un-affected leg in front of your affected affected leg. Lean forward and away from your affected side. You will feel a stretch on the outer portion of your hip.




2. Seated Rotation Stretch


Sit on the floor with both legs straight in front of you. Cross one leg over the other. Slowly twist toward your bent leg, putting your hand behind you for support. Place your opposite arm on your bent thigh and use it to help you twist further. Slowly come back to center. Reverse leg positions and repeat the stretch on the other side.




3. Single Knee to Chest


Lie on your back with both knees straight. Slowly bring one knee up, grab with hands and gently pull towards your chest. Hands can be under or over the front of your knee. You will feel a stretch in your lower back and buttocks.




4. Supine Hamstring Stretch


While lying on your back, lift one leg and grasp it from behind with both hands or a towel. Pull your knee toward your chest. Straighten the leg to the point of tightness in the back of your thigh. Hold and then lower leg back down.




5. Sidelying Straight Leg Raise Abduction


Lie on your side with top leg straight, bottom leg can be slightly bent at knee.  Tighten front thigh muscles of your top leg, keep leg straight and raise leg no higher than 45 degrees.  Keep shoulder, hip, knee and ankle in one straight line.  Stay under control, slow is better; feel outside of hip working.




6. Sidelying Straight Leg Raise Adduction


Lie on your side, bend top leg and place foot in front of other knee. Bottom leg is straight, tighten front thigh quad muscle, raise bottom leg up a few inches while keeping it straight. Keep shoulder, hip, knee and ankle of moving leg in one straight line. Keep thigh tight on the way down too!




7. Prone Extension


Lie on your stomach with your knee bent at 90 degrees. Lift your thigh up off the table or floor while making sure not to arch your lower back. Return to starting position. Repeat.

HIP EXERCISE DEMO, AS VIEWED ON THE PT-HELPER MOBILE APP

Start your Free 30-day Trial of the PT-Helper CONNECT tool for physical therapists and other therapy providers, so you too may create and prescribe Home Exercise Programs like the one shown above.

Click here to view all knee & hip exercises currently available within the PT-Helper Exercise Library.