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JUNE 2021
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AVERY’S LAST HURRAH OUR FANTASTIC AIDE SAYS GOODBYE BEFORE HEADING TO PT SCHOOL
I promised this day would come, and it’s finally here: Our amazing physical therapy aide, Avery, is saying goodbye. As I write this, our team isn’t 100% sure when Avery’s last day in the clinic will be, but as I told you back in April, she’s leaving for PT school in Philadelphia this summer. Before she goes, I asked her to step in here to share a bit about her journey and say goodbye to all of you personally. Here she is. Hey friends, it’s Avery! First off, thank you for being so friendly and supportive over the last two years, and especially the last three months. Ever since Kevin announced I’d be leaving in the April newsletter, you’ve given me so many kind words of congratulations and encouragement! You guys are the best. I feel so loved. Honestly, I’ll be sad to move on from Advanced PT Torrington. That’s partly because I enjoy helping you so much and partly because our team here is like a little family. I’ll miss them! Still, I’m so grateful to have had this opportunity. I can’t imagine a better way I could have spent the years between college at UConn and PT school at Drexel University. As Kevin mentioned in April, PT school has been on the horizon for me since I was hired. I actually wanted to be an athletic trainer for most of the time I was in college, but when I started looking for graduate school programs in the field, nothing stood out to me. Then I had the idea to scope out PT. I realized if I switched my focus, I could work with a specialized population, like kids, older patients, or people with neuro-deficiencies. I’ve pictured myself helping kids ever since I had to go through physical therapy for a field hockey-induced concussion in high school. I did concussion rehab at an outpatient traumatic brain injury center and saw dozens of other kids with worse problems than mine. I thought, “Maybe I could do that one day. I could help kids like them!” Those memories stayed in the back of my mind all through college, and I even volunteered at summer camps as an athletic trainer. But then it hit me: As a PT, I could do more than watch the kids play soccer from the sidelines. So, six
months before my college graduation, I switched my plans. I wouldn’t change a thing!
I found Advanced PT Torrington after graduation, and it has been the perfect place for me to learn the ropes. Since I came to PT so late, I didn’t get into any of the schools I applied to on my first attempt, but Kevin supported me through it. After another year working with him, gaining experience, and learning everything I could, I reapplied and got in! I was actually accepted to several schools and ended up picking Drexel University because it’s near my family. Like Kevin said, I’m not 100% sure when I’ll be leaving for Philly. Right now, I’m thinking I’ll probably move in August so I can get settled in before my program starts in September. If you want to know my official last day, just ask next time you see me! I might have it figured out. We’re going to miss Avery here in the clinic but can’t wait to see her succeed in PT school. And after she graduates in 2024, who knows — maybe she’ll come home. –Avery
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A SURPRISING WAY TO FIGHT ALZHEIMER'S PHYSICAL THERAPY:
Alzheimer's disease is an ailment that continues to baffle us, even as we learn more about it than ever before. Doctors and scientists have made huge strides in understanding and fighting Alzheimer’s, especially in the past three decades. But for everything learned, more questions must be asked. Sometimes, things just work, and we aren’t sure why. For a long time, exercise and physical therapy were part of that. PT had a role in slowing Alzheimer’s, but doctors didn’t fully understand what that was. Today, we have a much clearer picture, and that provides hope for future understanding. There are two things at the root of PT’s connection to good Alzheimer’s treatment. The first is very basic: Alzheimer’s responds to physical activity. Just as certain mental exercises can help stave off or slow down the advent of the disease, physical activity has been shown in studies published by Harvard and in trade journals to have a positive effect on some Alzheimer’s outcomes. Obviously, it isn’t a frontline treatment, but staying active helps your brain continue to “work out” the parts that are connected to movement and body functions, which are negatively impacted by the mid and late stages of the disease.
we expect PT to progress and then slow down, even cease after a while. That’s because the injury has healed. But with Alzheimer’s, the goal of PT is to keep mobility high for as long as possible . It’s not a winning battle, but the longer we can stay active and mobile, the better our quality of life will be. Once the illness progresses to the mobility and physical function regions of the brain, physical therapy becomes all the more important. Because many late-stage Alzheimer’s patients can expect to be bedridden, increasing mobility as much as possible for as long as possible can help mitigate risks such as bed sores and other secondary ailments. According to a recent study published in the American Journal of Medicine, therapy and activity can decrease the disease progressing through the physical activity centers of the brain by as much as 50%. There’s no denying that Alzheimer’s is a frightening condition, and watching loved ones go through it is hard. But we aren’t powerless in this situation. We need to put together a treatment plan, and a holistic plan will include physical activity, and later physical therapy, to mitigate those aspects of the disease. It may not be a cure, but it is a smart and effective treatment based on hard science. Right now, that has to be enough.
To that end, physical therapy itself has a big part to play. The key goal is to retain mobility. If a patient has a broken leg,
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KALE, SEAWEED, AND OTHER NOT-SO-NEW SUPERFOODS There’s nothing so trendy as a new superfood or diet, and the “in vogue” ones change constantly. Older readers may remember the Atkins diets and other fads of the early 2000s, but younger ones may not even remember a time before the paleo diet was a thing — and it’s already almost a thing of the past. Many things we associate with these trends, though, are anything but new. We see this most clearly with the grains we turn to in the name of health. Westerners generally wouldn’t be familiar with quinoa, amaranth, teff, or kamut if it weren’t for their presence in the hippest healthy-eating Instagram feeds. Many of these foods
hail from Africa or the Far East, so it’s understandable we don’t know them all — but there’s nothing really new about them. People in the Americas and the Old World have eaten quinoa for 3,000–5,000 years. Teff, which is technically a grass seed, was one of the first domesticated plants, emerging thousands of years ago in what is now Ethiopia. Alternate sources of protein and fiber show a similar trend. Seaweed — the perennial favorite of Twitter dieters everywhere — has been consumed in China, Korea, and Japan since before recorded history. If you know anything about recorded history in those regions, then you know that’s a long time! And kale, whose reputation precedes itself, has been cultivated since at least 2,000 B.C. in Greece, Asia Minor, and other parts of the Mediterranean. So, the next time you dig into your favorite health food, take a moment to Google what you are eating. You might be part of a long line of human beings who have turned to that food for sustenance over the millennia!
GRILLED CHICKEN SHAWARMA Inspired by FeastingAtHome.com
TAKE A BREAK!
INGREDIENTS
• 2 tbsp ground cumin • 2 tbsp ground coriander • 2 tsp kosher salt • 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper • 2 tsp turmeric • 1 tsp ground ginger
• 1 tsp ground black pepper • 2 tsp allspice • 8 garlic cloves, minced • 6 tbsp olive oil • 2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs
DIRECTIONS
1. To create marinade, whisk all spices with the garlic and olive oil in a medium bowl. 2. Add chicken to the bowl, coat well with marinade, cover, and let sit in the fridge for at least 20 minutes — or up to 48 hours. Strain off excess marinade before cooking.
3. Preheat grill to medium-high heat. Grill thighs for 10–12 minutes on each side, or until a meat thermometer reads 165 F. 4. Serve with rice, vegetables, or pita bread with tzatziki.
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INSIDE THIS ISSUE
1. COVER TITLE 1.
A GOODBYE LETTER FROM AVERY
2. A SURPRISING WAY TO FIGHT ALZHEIMER'S 3. SUPERFOODS ARE NOT SO NEW ... GRILLED CHICKEN SHAWARMA 4. ‘TOO OLD’ FOR MARTIAL ARTS?
‘TOO OLD’ FOR MARTIAL ARTS? TELL IT TO MR. MIYAGI — and also beat down bad guy John Kreese in the process, despite Kreese being a much younger man. Mr. Miyagi is based on a “stock” character, or archetype, from traditional Asian martial arts culture. But there’s a grain of truth to it, whether you’re looking at real-life martial artists (Henry Plée comes to mind, who practiced well into his 80s) or fighting school founders in medieval Japan — who often viewed karate as integral to their understanding of Zen and other spiritual matters, and thus essential as they got older. Netflix’s “Cobra Kai” carries on the tradition, showing us a much-older LaRusso who takes on the Miyagi role, opposite his longtime “frenemy” Johnny Lawrence. LaRusso and Lawrence have both returned to karate in middle age, and even Kreese reappears, now in his 70s and as formidable as ever. Is that realistic? You bet! According to one study, the average karate practitioner is 55 years old, and the average martial artist is 46. Many in both groups report regular sparring and contact practice. If you’re a martial artist, you may have to make some adjustments as you get older, but you’ll never have to give up your discipline entirely. And if you’re new to the world of martial arts, it’s never too late to start — as long as you find the right teacher and school!
Martial arts get added to the list of activities we can’t do as we age, right? Unless you’re doing tai chi or aikido, most people think there’s no place in contact sports for aging folks.
Except, as it turns out, there is.
From hip shows like “Cobra Kai” (and its basis, “The Karate Kid”) to centuries of tradition, older people and martial arts actually mix quite well — and they can be a great throughline for an active life. Martial arts took off in the United States back in the 1980s with the “Karate Kid” franchise, which continues today. The original movies showed us Pat Morita, an Okinawan expatriate and karate master who trains Ralph Macchio’s character, Daniel LaRusso. Morita’s Mr. Miyagi is no spring chicken, but he’s able to take LaRusso to new levels of karate expertise
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