Back To Motion was able to “Reach out and Touch” to keep the performers of Motown “Dancing In The Streets”
The other week I had the exciting opportunity to treat some of the cast members of Motown The Musical. Despite my allergies running rampant, the fast pace interaction and intervention was rewarding to me and hopefully helpful to the cast. The submission of this blog is to recognize the smart decision by the cast’s union to provide PT. It wasn’t massage. It wasn’t chiropractic treatment. It wasn’t a physical trainer. It was PT.
Obviously, I am biased since I am a PT. However, I think PT is your best option for one stop shopping. I felt confident enough to explain to people whether their pain was articular, muscular, tendinous, or ligamentous. (The reality is all pain is perceived in the brain but I could say with confidence which tissue was injured). We traditionally work within a medical model, so it is rare that our interventions would be an unacceptable form of treatment. We use our hands for soft tissue work, so many of the cast members received massage to the injured tissues. We do manipulation, so if something felt “jammed” I could correct it. We perform trigger point dry needling (although I did not bring any needles with me to the back stage room). We can tape muscles and joints. That night I did a fair amount of kinesiotaping. Each appointment was 20 minutes. That is a short appointment, but enough to determine dysfunctions ad impairments, offer advice on exercises, tape areas that needed taping and perform adequate manual therapy. I documented their PT sessions and the documentation is faxed to a central location and the hard copies follow the show to different cities in a binder.
I get frustrated because many people don’t recognize the benefit and the health care cost savings of PT. Perhaps my profession is not good at communicating our importance. Someone from the cast’s union clearly understood the importance of physical therapy. Kudos to the cast of Motown, the musicians, and all of the support people who turn the history, people, magic, and music into a top notch entertaining, production.