Running support

Recent articles supporting the benefits of running throughout the lifespan:
http://www.insidermedicine.ca/Archives/Running_for_Longevity_Weight_Loss_and_Type_2_Diabetes_Childhood_Trauma_and_Alcohol_Use_2767.aspx

http://blogs.usatoday.com/betterlife/2008/08/running-away-fr.html?csp=34

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/118052.php

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/118030.php

http://www.thecamreport.com/2008/08/12/benefits-of-running-in-the-elderly/

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/117929.php

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080811195633.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7554293.stm

http://healthfinder.gov/news/newsstory.asp?Docid=618244

And I am usually the one cracking some bad jokes but I thought this was in poor taste, tsk tsk OT student with tons of energy to blog all throughout the night:
http://otstudents.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-to-determine-if-you-should-go-into.html

No Internet!!!

So to cut my commute by about 3 hours and 50 minutes daily I have managed to apartment sit for a friend of my mother's near my hospital, unfortunately I have no way of finding out the wireless password and the ethernet doesn't seem to work for some reason so it's been rough goings as far as updating... I have been updating my "shared items" on the bottom right hand of this page which has some really interesting stuff every day, I get that all through my phone very easily...

I ran (figuratively) back to my long commute today to pick up my new rollerblades (which are too small and a pain to return via mail:( and my new tennis racket (my first one ever really-new game for me, got a long way to go)...

Still been running (literally), and will undergo a V02 max test next Monday which is exciting.
Been watching a bit of history at the olympics, between Phelps and Bolt I am amazed, much moreso by Bolt who if you divide out his "40-time" from the 200m would equate to a 3.53 or something crazy low like that when the top rookie to run it at the combine this year was at about a 4.27... if anyone can fathom these numbers kudos to you and kudos to those olympians, world records being shattered

Back to my board prep for a minute though... I took another Practice Exam/Assessment Tool (PEAT) from the fsbpt and improved and achieved the score I told my professor I expected to... I am 2/2 at predicting within one point of my score which has to count for something... hopefully the day of the real exam I predict a minimum of a 77 or so since 75 seems to be passing nowadays (I have heard rumblings that there is a bit of a tiny curve?).

One thing I found very helpful in taking the exam was drawing a little human on my dry erase board (that is what is provided for the exam to jot down whatever helps you throughout the exam). Many questions force you to picture a lot of anatomy so it helps to have that little guy/gal to help visualize what the question is trying to trick you into... or I trick myself into...

Upon review of the questions I got wrong (and even most of the ones I got right) I realized that I like to overthink questions a bit... which I kind of always knew... as I tend to ramble also I think that ties into it... and at work they tell me I am too thorough and can leave some superfluous things out of my instructions, still trying to be efficient... the more feedback I get the better I get at it... although my patients seem to enjoy all the extra tidbits :-D

At work today we were given a clinical competency exam (the 3 newer employees) which was fairly interesting, had somethings I had not seen clinically and some I have seen once or twice but should be much more familiar with... it is such a great learning experience being there though... can't applaud them enough on the educational aspects of the environment...

Anyway, from all the figurative and literal running I have to get back to shower and study... more to come on the study tactics and I bid you all adieu!

Board Prep

Thank you to my reader from the U of W for this topic... as a general rule I love feedback and questions and am willing to share what I got up in my brain with those willing to listen.

The National Physical Therapy Exam is the exam that if/when I pass will allow me to be licensed in the state of New York.

Not all states have temporary licensure, however NY is one of those states thus I currently have a temporary license which allows me to practice/treat patients.

The exam itself is 250 (4-choice multiple choice) questions with 5 hours alloted for all of them, which leaves about 75 seconds a question. 50 of the questions are experimental but you never know which they are. The topics covered are: Musculoskeletal, Integumentary, Cardiopulmonary, Neurological, Other systems (with an increased focus recently placed on genitourinary, gastrointestinal, and women's health to reflect the changing face of PT).

Two years ago at one of the major APTA conferences I purchased the O'Sullivan review book. I am still using that book at this point mainly reading through the exam questions/answers/rationales in the back of the book to skip the process of taking the practice exam and getting the questions wrong... then going to learn it in the back of the book. I find this to be a great use of my time, although none of the questions are likely to find their way to the actual exam. From what I have heard the book practice exams are more difficult than the real exam. The other rationale for my skipping the test taking is I am confident in my ability to take exams, if this is not a strong point for you then take as many practice exams with as real a simulation to the real thing as possible! The exam is a computer-based one and there are a few breaks, and a whole process for different sections (closing off and bathroom breaks, etc.) with the ability to 'flag' a question you may want to return to later.

Another point of interest is that you should be able to score a minimum of a 75 on 3 straight practice exams before taking the boards to statistically "gaurantee" a passing score on the real exam as per a few recent studies and trends noted in academia.

More to come, just gotta run right now (literally, 1 hour in central park, talk to ya'll soon)...

Nice Day Off

here is the video of me pitching that I had pictures of in an earlier post:


today was nice, I went and played catch (football) with one of my buddies and then hit some golf balls at the driving range, improved my chipping and putting... got some decent studying done for the boards believe it or not and had a football coaches meeting to close out the day... now back to my Tuesday-Saturday work week... off to sleep!

Sunday PT

As someone who isn't used to working at all, working on a Sunday is a unique feeling... it's 6:40 AM and I am waiting for the train (trying rollerblades for the non-train part of my commute).

As a recap I work in acute care ortho setting where almost all patients just had some sort of orthopaedic procedure performed. The majority are total hip or knee replcaements followed by spinal surgeries and a variety of other interesting surgical procedures that require some assistive device training, gait/transfer training, safety and patient education, therapeutic exercises and range of motion.

For the first 6 days of the week therapy is provided twice a day and on sunday's only once.

The weird thing this week for me is I had yesterday off and will have tomorrow off. So it's almost like having two weekends...maybe?

I normally have Sunday and Monday off but I became a godfather yesterday so I had to take the day off. Which did give me a chance to take part in the new york road runner's long training run in central park where I ran 10 miles in just under 80 minutes with an average HR of 170. Then I ran back to my friends place to shower and ran to the train to get to the godfathery-thingy.

In other news my boards are fast approaching... that's really all I have to say about that :)

Have a great sunday... football is coming!!! yay...

Balance & Symmetry

Homeostasis is a term often brought up when referring to the ideal state of the human body.

The body as a unit has a balance between structure and function. Many engineers and architects seem to have a great understanding of these concepts, and ultimately the body is a lump of clay that is molded over the years. The longer your movements (your functions) are out of balance, the more deep rooted an imbalanced structure becomes.

Little things like brushing your teeth with only one hand can take up but a tiny portion of ones day but are furthering the use of one hand versus the other. Holding a bag always on the same shoulder rather than switching it up can actually limit your arm swing when walking because (women in particular) have the tendency to hold a bag in one hand when walking. Everytime you slouch you go further into the forward-head/caveman posture. Usually people are just not aware of these imbalances until it starts to hurt, and usually by then it is too late. Even having a dominant hand, one you use for the majority of tasks, tends to leave that dominant shoulder lower than the other and that sides 'upper quarter' more loose simply from being more active.

So this is my call to you to add balance to your life, not just left to right but front to back as well. An ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure. Every little bit counts. Don't say I never warned you :-D