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Services
What we treat
Physical therapy and chiropractic care for orthopedic, women’s health, and pelvic floor conditions.
Orthopedic and sports rehab
Evaluation of posture, spinal motion, strength, and sensation, with hands-on treatment aimed at the source of the problem and your goals.
Chiropractic care
Chiropractic care provided by Michael Iacovelli, PT, DC, alongside physical therapy.
Pelvic floor rehab
Evaluation and treatment of pelvic floor dysfunction in women and men, including pain, bladder, and bowel conditions.
Prenatal and postnatal care
Education, exercise, and treatment to protect you during pregnancy and restore your health after delivery.
Conditions
Find your concern
Orthopedic rehab and sports medicine
Pain in the neck, lower back, or mid back is common and can refer to the arms or legs (sciatica when felt in the legs). We evaluate your posture, spinal motion, strength, and sensation, assess the segments of your spine by hand, and treat the source of the problem. We discuss it with you and direct treatment toward resolving your complaint and meeting your goals.
Pelvic floor rehab
The pelvic floor muscles sit at the bottom of the pelvis and can be injured, weak, or tight like any other muscles. They help maintain urinary and fecal continence, support sexual function, and protect your spine and pelvic organs. Because they connect through nerves to the bladder, colon, and uterus, they can affect those organs, and they are often overlooked. As physical therapists, our expertise is the evaluation of musculoskeletal function, including in the pelvic floor.
Prenatal care
Physical therapy can be a great asset during pregnancy: education, exercise instruction, treatment of orthopedic and pelvic floor conditions, and injury prevention through posture and movement re-education. Some complaints are common in pregnancy and seem to resolve on their own, but they can point to dysfunction in the musculoskeletal system. A physical therapy evaluation addresses these early, when options are broader, and can reduce difficulties later in pregnancy, in delivery, and postpartum.
Postnatal care
Physical therapy after delivery is key to restoring a mother’s health and lowering the risk of orthopedic or pelvic floor injury. Recovery often takes a back seat to caring for a newborn, and many women are not evaluated for pelvic floor dysfunction, perineal tears, prolapse, or abdominal muscle integrity early on. We help with all of these.
Pudendal neuralgia
Pudendal neuralgia is pain in the buttock, pelvic, or genital region, worse with sitting. The pudendal nerve runs from the lower spine through the pelvis and supplies sensation to the perineum, sexual organs, bladder, and bowel. It can be compressed or injured by pelvic trauma, prolonged sitting, chronic constipation, childbirth, pelvic surgery, sports injuries, and pelvic radiation. Treatment aims to decompress the nerve using manual therapy, modalities, and pelvic floor muscle re-education.
How we treat
Treatments and tools
Jump to a treatment
Hands-on and movement
Equipment we use as an adjunct when indicated
Hands-on and movement
Manual therapy
Through extensive training and practice, the therapist develops the sensitivity to evaluate and treat dysfunctions of the musculoskeletal system through manual techniques. With good manual skills, the therapist can locate joint and soft tissue restrictions causing pain and movement dysfunction. By focusing treatment towards these areas we can restore improved quality and movement more quickly than a generalized approach. Manual therapy techniques can be used to improve circulation and lymphatic flow, improve joint mobility and range of motion, eliminate muscular trigger points, reduce spasm, and release fascial restrictions, restoring movement and improving visceral function. With improvements in local structures, exercises and stretches become more effective and good posture is easier to sustain.
Therapeutic exercise
We utilize a combination of therapeutic exercise techniques specific to your individual situation. We develop many muscle imbalances, starting from an early age, based on our posture, activities, and movement patterns. Our skill is to identify these problems for you, and give you exercises to correct them. We also work on core strengthening programs that incorporate the deep muscles of the abdomen, back, and pelvic floor. We’ll progress you toward independence with a home program.
Pilates-based rehab
Are you looking for something special to move you forward? The movements on the apparatus are a wonderful tool to reveal the present alignment and functional movement of the body. As the body learns the natural bone rhythms and proper releases, the alignment changes, and there is the sense of ease in movement. Learn to move from your breath with core strength, control, and confidence. Experience hands on mobilization and manual therapy while moving on the apparatus, and leave the session feeling taller and more open.
Gait analysis
Gait analysis is an important part of our specialty, and can identify many longstanding orthopedic problems, or help you to regain normal walking mechanics after surgery.
Gait and balance re-education
Evaluation of walking is often included when assessing various orthopedic conditions including spine or lower extremity complaints. Often, even neck complaints can be related to poor walking habits and mechanics. Balance is an integral part of gait, and the ability to stand for elderly patients. If age related balance problems exist, we may suggest the use of a cane for daily use, or walking sticks are helpful if walking or hiking for exercise. Evaluation observes head and trunk position, how long or wide your steps are, the position of the joints of your lower limbs, and how balanced you are as you are walking. If you are elderly or have a neurologic impairment, different tests are used to assess your risk of falling.
Biomechanical analysis of the spine and lower extremities
Evaluation of spinal position is assessed, and factors contributing to asymmetry evaluated. You are evaluated while in static positions, and during motion. We observe mechanics of how you walk or run to determine the influence of lower extremity mechanics. Starting at the ankle and viewing up the knee to the hip, we can determine what strength and flexibility exercise would be most beneficial. Mechanics of the lower extremity influence spinal position and function. We often compensate for weakness or structural asymmetry and are never aware that we do so. Some compensations include lateral bending of the trunk, rotational positions of the thigh or leg, increase or decrease in arch of the foot and many more. Therapy can help identify many of these and help determine appropriate care.
Equipment (modalities)
Biofeedback
Biofeedback is a monitoring system which allows clients to observe internal functions such as respiration, temperature, heart rate variability and muscle tension in such a way that positive changes can be observed on a computer screen. Once these changes become natural, pain and anxiety are reduced. This process can be applied to urinary urgency, IBS, hypertension, PTSD, headache, and many other chronic conditions.
Pelvic floor biofeedback
Biofeedback, also called surface electromyography (SEMG), is a learning technique that utilizes specialized equipment to assist you in gaining control of your natural body functions. Biofeedback training uses sensitive equipment that enables you to see or hear how your muscles are responding to your instructions. Becoming aware of these responses is the first step in learning to control them. By combining this information with special exercises, you can learn to relax tense muscles or strengthen weak muscles. For the evaluation, you will use either an internal sensor, placed into the vagina or rectum, or external stick-on sensors placed around the rectal opening. These sensors monitor the muscle activity of your pelvic floor muscles, so you and your therapist can evaluate resting muscle activity as well as muscle strength and endurance.
Ultrasound
Ultrasound is one of the most common treatments for soft tissue injury. Sound waves are absorbed 1 to 5 cm deep and can help resolve inflammation and speed tissue repair. Scientific studies are not conclusive on its benefits, so we use it as an adjunct when indicated.
Also offered
We use special equipment as an adjunct to treatment, including electrical stimulation and traction. Our treatments also include neuromuscular re-education and work on posture and body mechanics.
Common questions
About physical therapy
What do physical therapists do?
You have probably heard of the profession of physical therapy. Maybe a friend told you how physical therapy helped with back pain, or you know someone who needed it after an injury. You might even have been treated by a physical therapist yourself. But have you ever wondered who physical therapists are and what they do?
Many people are familiar with physical therapists’ work helping patients with orthopedic problems, such as low back pain or knee surgery, to reduce pain and regain function. Others may be aware of the treatment physical therapists provide to patients recovering from a stroke, helping them regain use of their limbs and walk again.
The ability to maintain an upright posture and to move your arms and legs to perform all sorts of tasks is an important part of your health. Most of us can learn to live with the medical conditions we may develop, but only if we can continue at our jobs, take care of our families, and enjoy important occasions with family and friends. All of these activities require the ability to move without difficulty or pain.
Because physical therapists are experts in movement and function, they do not confine their talents to treating people who are ill. A large part of a physical therapist’s work is aimed at preventing injury, loss of movement, and even surgery. Physical therapists work as consultants in industrial settings to improve workplace design and reduce the risk of workers overusing certain muscles or developing low back pain. They also provide services to athletes at all levels to screen for potential problems and set up preventive exercise programs.
The cornerstones of physical therapy treatment are therapeutic exercise and functional training. In addition to “hands-on” care, physical therapists educate patients to take care of themselves and to perform certain exercises on their own. Depending on the patient’s needs, a physical therapist may also “mobilize” a joint (perform certain movements at the end of your range of motion) or massage a muscle to promote proper movement and function. Physical therapists also use methods such as ultrasound (which uses high-frequency waves to produce heat), hot packs, and ice.
Although other kinds of practitioners offer some of these treatments as “physical therapy,” physical therapy can only be provided by qualified physical therapists or by physical therapist assistants, who must complete a 2-year education program and work only under the direction and supervision of physical therapists. Most forms of physical therapy treatment are covered by your insurance, but coverage varies with each plan. Most states do not legally require patients to see their physicians before seeing a physical therapist. Most of the time, all you have to do is ask your doctor if physical therapy is right for you.
Why are people referred to physical therapy?
You may be referred to physical therapy because of a movement dysfunction associated with pain. Difficulty moving part of your body, such as bending at the low back or sleeping on your shoulder, very likely limits your daily activities, for example getting out of a chair, playing sports, or walking. Physical therapists treat these movement dysfunctions and their associated pain, and restore your body’s ability to move in a normal manner.
Why is physical therapy a good choice?
Every year, about 100 million adult Americans experience chronic pain, a condition that costs the nation between 560 and 635 billion dollars annually, according to a 2011 report from the Institute of Medicine. However, many people do not know that physical therapists are well equipped to treat not only pain, but also its source.
Physical therapists are experts at treating movement and neuro-musculoskeletal disorders. Pain often accompanies a movement disorder, and physical therapists can help correct the disorder and relieve the pain.
Is physical therapy painful?
For many patients, one of the primary objectives is pain relief. This is frequently accomplished with hands-on techniques, modalities such as ultrasound and electrical stimulation, and heat or cold therapy. Movement often provides pain relief as well. Your physical therapist will give you the appropriate exercises, not only for pain relief, but also to recover range of motion, strength, and endurance.
In some cases, physical therapy techniques can be painful. For example, recovering knee range of motion after total knee replacement, or shoulder range of motion after shoulder surgery, may be painful. Your physical therapist will use a variety of techniques to help maximize your treatment goals. It is important that you tell your therapist the intensity, frequency, and duration of your pain. Without this information, it is difficult for the therapist to adjust your treatment plan.
Will I get a massage at physical therapy?
Massage may be part of your treatment. Rehabilitation specialists are trained in a variety of techniques that may help your recovery, and deep tissue techniques may be part of the process. Massage is typically used for three reasons: to help blood return from a swollen area, to relax a tight muscle, or to relieve pain. Contrary to common thought, massage does not increase circulation.
Can my therapist provide me with a diagnosis?
In most states, physical therapists cannot make a medical diagnosis. This is something your medical doctor will provide. Physical therapists are important members of your medical team, but physicians are typically the health care providers who give a medical diagnosis.
What happens if my problem or pain returns?
Flare-ups are not uncommon. If you have a flare-up, give us a call. We may suggest you come back to see us, return to your doctor, or simply change your daily activities or exercise routine.
What will I have to do after physical therapy?
Some patients will need to continue with home exercises. Some may choose to continue with a gym exercise program. Others will complete their rehabilitation and return to normal daily activities. It is important that you tell your therapist your goals, so he or she can develop a custom program for you.
Is my therapist licensed?
Physical therapists (PTs) and physical therapist assistants (PTAs) are licensed by their respective states.