Manual Therapy and Therapeutic Exercise for Common Orthopedic Conditions and Functional Mobility

Goals & Objectives:

Course Overview

Manual therapy and therapeutic exercise are foundational interventions when treating orthopedic conditions. Recently, research has focused on the effectiveness of using both manual therapy and therapeutic exercise to treat orthopedic conditions as compared to other interventions or compared to using just manual therapy or just therapeutic exercise. There is a growing body of evidence to support the use of these interventions together as they seem to augment the effectiveness of each other. 

This course will look at recent evidence that demonstrates the effectiveness of manual therapy and therapeutic exercise relative to specific orthopedic conditions. Lab sessions will focus on demonstrating the manual therapy techniques and exercises that are found to be effective in treating conditions in the hip, knee, ankle, and shoulder.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completing this course, the learner should be able to:

• Analyze the biomechanical principles of joint arthrokinematics and their application to manual therapy techniques for the knee, ankle, hip, and shoulder joints. 
• Differentiate between open and closed kinetic chain movements and their implications for therapeutic exercise selection and manual therapy approaches. 
• Apply evidence-based manual therapy techniques including mobilization grades, mobilization with movement, and soft tissue techniques for common orthopedic conditions. 
• Arrange progressive therapeutic exercise programs that incorporate appropriate loading principles for conditions such as osteoarthritis, tendinopathies, and post-surgical rehabilitation. 
• Integrate manual therapy with therapeutic exercise interventions to optimize outcomes for patients with common orthopedic conditions. 
• Implement joint-specific rehabilitation strategies for knee, ankle, hip, and shoulder pathologies based on current research evidence. 
• Differentiate appropriate manual therapy techniques and therapeutic exercises for specific orthopedic conditions in laboratory practice sessions. 
• Analyze the neurophysiological, biomechanical, and interpersonal mechanisms underlying the effectiveness of manual therapy interventions.