Physical Therapy Month: A New Start

Prepar­ing to move to a new state and start a new job isn’t an ide­al time for major surgery, but Quin­cy Med­ical Group ENT (Ear, Nose, and Throat) Physi­cian Dr. Paul Con­rad knew he would be in good hands in his new home.

This past sum­mer, just two weeks before he moved to Quin­cy, Dr. Con­rad had a total hip arthro­plas­ty in Maysville, Ken­tucky, where he had his ENT prac­tice. Three weeks after surgery, he had his first day at QMG and just two weeks lat­er he start­ed see­ing patients.

He’s grate­ful for QMG Ortho­pe­dic Sur­geons Dr. Adam Der­hake and Dr. George Crickard, as well as QMG Phys­i­cal Ther­a­pist Kristin Thomp­son, for help­ing him make a smooth tran­si­tion to his new home while healing.

“I resumed phys­i­cal ther­a­py here three weeks after surgery, at which time an eval­u­a­tion was done to not only check my wound, but also start my phys­i­cal activ­i­ty on an increas­ing basis and spe­cial­ly designed exer­cis­es to get strength back in my right leg and but­tock mus­cles,” he shared.

After his surgery, Dr. Conrad’s right leg is now slight­ly longer than his left leg, and his hip replace­ment has result­ed in changes to his nor­mal stand­ing and pelvic posi­tion­ing. So Thomp­son worked with him, show­ing him and help­ing him per­form bal­ance exer­cis­es to adjust to his new equi­lib­ri­um. Because of this, his low­er back and right knee pain have dis­ap­peared as well.

Dr. Con­rad start­ed phys­i­cal ther­a­py back in Ken­tucky and he’s grate­ful to Thomp­son for see­ing him through to a full recovery.

“Com­pared to my phys­i­cal ther­a­py team in my small town in Ken­tucky where I came from, it seemed that the exer­cise plans here are more stren­u­ous and geared towards your improve­ment quick­er,” he shared.

In addi­tion, Dr. Con­rad took advan­tage of an app pro­vid­ed at QMG to help him keep up his ther­a­py at home.

“Using the Med­Bridge Go app, that we have here at QMG, was very help­ful in guid­ing me through exer­cis­es that were indi­vid­u­al­ly tai­lored to my recov­ery,” he said. ​“For patients with smart phones or com­put­ers, the instruc­tion ses­sions were very easy to find and showed videos of how to per­form the PT maneuvers.”

Now that Dr. Con­rad has been in Quin­cy for a cou­ple of months, he’s find­ing him­self right at home and phys­i­cal­ly stronger, thanks to the Ortho­pe­dics and Phys­i­cal Ther­a­py teams and the entire QMG family.

“Every­one is very pos­i­tive, wel­com­ing, and over­whelm­ing­ly help­ful. I’m look­ing for­ward to very many suc­cess­ful years here with QMG.”