Welcome to our new subscribers!! And if you haven't joined the conversation on Facebook, then find us @ptsonmission to continue to receive updates, encouragement, and information. Finally, tell a friend if you are benefiting from this site.

Well, with all the overseas medical work and the holiday season, there was so much to talk about on the blog that there have been very few additions of “Journal Club.” So, I thought I’d kick off the new year with a blog highlighting another interesting study. This study is going to be geared to those PT’s who work in the neuro world as it looks at evidence to establish clinical practice guidelines for locomotor function in a myriad of neurological diagnoses including stroke, incomplete spinal cord, and brain injury. So let’s dive in!

The team of researchers gathered randomized control trials of different neuro-intervention studies focused on individuals with acute onset central nervous system injury. They wanted to look at those interventions that best helped the patient return to a healthy walking speed because walking is a critical component for independent function and is often the most affected motor skill affected by CNS injury.

Clinical Practice Guidelines to Improve Locomotor Function in CNS Injury

After compiling all the studies and analyzing all data, the researchers came to several important conclusions. They found that there was strong evidence for walking training at moderate to high intensities to improve gait speed and function. They also found that virtual reality training can help as well. This makes sense given that walking is a very integrated task so the best way to improve that is to challenge it at higher intensities. Interestingly, they found that there was weaker evidence that strength training and or circuit training improved walking speed and distance. They also assessed some evidence on body weight support treadmill training or robotic assisted training, which I will let you read so I don’t spoil the whole article. 🙂

So, what do we take away? In situations of acute CNS injury, the patient needs to begin walking and moderate to high intensities and we need to make sure we can accomplish that safely. It is not wrong to incorporate strength training and circuit training but it does not have the same effect on gait speed and distance as actually training the function and those are two key measures that are important to recover for the sake of patient independence and decreasing fall risk.

Jason

​***Check out my book "Rehab the World" written for Physical Therapists to encourage us in our workplace and prepare us to serve those around us. If you like, please leave a review and spread the word!!***

Welcome to our new subscribers!! And if you haven't joined the conversation on Facebook, then find us @ptsonmission to continue to receive updates, encouragement, and information. Finally, tell a friend if you are benefiting from this site.
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I really love Christmas carols and this season is when I can sing them to my heart’s content. I love Christmas carols because, yes, they are familiar and help me to immerse myself in the Christmas season, but the main reason I like them so much is because of the simple truth they all proclaim. They all proclaim the truth of the coming of Christ and the truth of what he will do both in his first coming and when he comes again.

It is those truths that are tucked away in the lyrics that help me focus on what matters during an often fun-filled, yet busy season. Take, for example, one of my favorites, “O Holy Night” and just read these lines and let them sink in for you this season.

A thrill of hope a weary world rejoices,
for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees;
O hear the angels voices!
Oh night divine, O night when Christ was born.

Did you catch it? The coming of Christ is the hope for this weary world. The world around us is quite weary. You may even feel that weariness this season. But the coming of Christ is like a new sunrise, a clean slate. It is something that cuts through the weariness of our days and brings joy.

Praise the Lord that Jesus came into this weary world to provide a hope and a future for all who believe in his name! Merry Christmas!

Jason

​***Check out my book "Rehab the World" written for Physical Therapists to encourage us in our workplace and prepare us to serve those around us. If you like, please leave a review and spread the word!!***

Welcome to our new subscribers!! And if you haven't joined the conversation on Facebook, then find us @ptsonmission to continue to receive updates, encouragement, and information. Finally, tell a friend if you are benefiting from this site.

​​The last few blogs have hopefully given you a good idea of the region and the work we did. It has been fun to share the experience with you and reflect on all that was accomplished both in writing and in pictures. But when you work abroad, you also want to go in with an open, humble heart to let God teach and change you. Many times, stepping away from your normal routine and being in an unfamiliar place allows God to work on your heart in different ways because you are in a much more dependent environment. So, I wanted to share four thoughts from God that have challenged and encouraged me and I hope they challenge and encourage you.
 
Be Thankful You Can Gather at Church Openly. We couldn’t really say the word “church” in our region so we used a different term. But for the handful of local believers that are in Jubilee, it continues to be difficult to gather together despite the great need for them to be able to encourage each other. There are several understandable reasons why it is difficult to gather including potential harm, suspicion, clan politics, etc. Even the local team of workers has to be somewhat strategic as to how and when they meet together and we were privileged to be able to join them for a house fellowship one afternoon. It was special. Anyway, it really made me reflect on being thankful that I can openly participate in my local fellowship/church. That is an incredible gift and helped me better understand the writer of Hebrews when he admonishes us to not give up the habit of meeting together (Heb. 10:25). It is vital to our spiritual life and you don’t know what you have until you don’t have it. Plug in to your church, attend, serve, and grow. It is a gift.

Take Advantage of Your Ability to Speak About Christ and the Gospel Whenever and Wherever You Want. This may be one of the most powerful reflections and encouragements to me personally and hopefully to you as well. The reality is that even though the culture around us in our American context may dislike the truth of God’s word and the reality of the Gospel, it generally is still not openly hostile to it. Now, you can make the case that it is changing, but compared to many places in the world (like our location) we still have an incredible amount of religious liberty. So, what an opportunity we have to speak Christ to those around us. We should not squander this opportunity! Being in this region of the world for 10 days encouraged me to continue sharing my faith here because I saw the difficulty that can arise in a different context. We should be telling everyone around us about Jesus. There are people around me that are just as lost as those in the region we were working. The freedom and ease to speak the Gospel here should certainly not be taken for granted.

Live Differently Because Truly Living Differently Will Cause Wonder. This may seem like a no-brainer but sometimes in our context there can be very little difference how we, as christians, live versus many non-believers. So make it a point to live different. This was especially evident in our region. When the norm is to have multiple wives (and yes, we did have actual conversations about this with a few locals) and you have one wife that you love and are committed to, that begs a lot of questions. Especially when there is joy and delight in the marriage. Or, when a man is involved in the lives of his children and family, that also screams out “different” because that is not really a thing for the context in which we were working. These two examples actually crossover here. If you are married, truly love and edify your spouse and stay committed to one another. Invest in your children and talk about your kids as a delight. If you are single or married, choose to live a pure life. But here there are other ways to live differently here. It could be how you spend your time, your finances, or avoiding complaining, or purposefully sharing the good news of Jesus to those around you, etc. But the bottom line is: to be a bright light, so much hinges on how we live and that needs to be markedly different than the world around us.
   
Finally, Remember Those Families Living Abroad and Sacrificing So Much to Bring the Good News of Christ to the Far Edges of the World. That, for me, is one of the many joys of partnering in short term work with long term teams: the new relationships that form and the opportunity to get to know their families. When you grow these relationships and partner in their discipleship work, all of the sudden what’s going on with them and through them becomes incredibly personal to you. And it is much easier to pray, encourage, and support those that you know on a personal level having served alongside them. So, if you go abroad make the connections and commitments to support them long after you are gone. And even if you can’t go, remember your brothers and sisters laboring all around the world and lift them up to persevere in their work and intercede that God would grant them to see fruit from their labors.

Do any of these thoughts resonate with you? I would love to know which ones and why!
​
Jason

***Check out my book "Rehab the World" written for Physical Therapists to encourage us in our workplace and prepare us to serve those around us. If you like, please leave a review and spread the word!!***

Welcome to our new subscribers!! And if you haven't joined the conversation on Facebook, then find us @ptsonmission to continue to receive updates, encouragement, and information. Finally, tell a friend if you are benefiting from this site.

Today I am excited to welcome my third teammate, Ryan Carrick, to the blog. He has some wonderful insights on working together and team collaboration that really impacted him from his time in N. Africa. Ryan is an Occupational Therapist with a history of work in home health and neurological rehab but is currently working as a professor in the OT department at Augusta University. I hope you enjoy his perspective!

"When a healthcare provider thinks of the term interdisciplinary or even collaboration, mental imagery is often based on prior experiences. Positive or negative, a healthcare provider moves forward in clinical practice working with other disciplines to an extent the paradigm of collaboration allows. A frame of reference for working as a team has the potential for exponential client benefit, whether side by side or even in silos. My own preference for collaboration leans towards interdisciplinary versus multidisciplinary or working together to solve a puzzle rather than simply side by side with another professional. I am an Occupational Therapist (OT) and absolutely value other health professionals’ experiences and knowledge. Unique expertise is cumulatively valuable with an interdisciplinary team. I’ve experienced this phenomenon both locally and internationally. Most recently, I was privileged to join two physical therapists in North Africa.

Before North Africa, I’m thankful to have experiences in Rwanda and Peru to foster the positivity towards teamwork. Additionally, working with fantastic teams in clinical and academic settings in the United States gives credibility to the attitude of gratitude. Working in non-sharing, non-communal environments have also occurred, however they’re growing and learning opportunities just the same. Various experiences as a healthcare provider create a personal story, and therefore, attitude towards collaboration. These attitudes and experiences can be documented and studied by counting or by quoting. If I were to study what occurred in North Africa, I’d reflect on the qualities of the experiences. For example, both qualitative and quantitative research have their complimentary purposes; but it is hard to overlook the vast opportunity of storytelling to grasp the full picture of a lived experience without appreciating the qualities of a healthcare team.
 
The story of the 2023 North Africa rehabilitation team began with a divine appointment between a doctor* and a physical therapist (PT). Both men shared a passion for helping people who are overlooked or even looked away from. Jason was the PT who was obedient to a call for service. He said, “Yes, I am here. Send me.” Then, he prayed some more. He saw the value with interdisciplinary care as well. He knew me and a few others that shared a desire for teamwork and for serving. Including Jason, three men said yes – 2 PTs and 1 OT. These three therapists chose to travel to an area of the world where most people would ask, “Why there?!” Well, a simple reply of “Why not?” suffices. We wanted to build bridges as a team of physical and occupational therapists coming from the United States, where, oddly enough, traditions can sometimes override knowledge and desire, causing anything but bridges. Speaking from experience, sometimes it takes stepping outside of a normal life flow to recognize what one may be overlooking. Let’s just start there with the theme “collaboration abroad.”

Collaboration started before we left on a jet plane. Teamwork building doesn’t simply happen with a scheduled protocol or tested theory. Teamwork truly happened when all members intentionally leaned in. We committed flexibility and intentionality to each other and to the work ahead of us. We were also thankful for a committed physician as “boots on the ground” in North Africa. Thankfully, this physician was fluent in the native language, understood the culture context and educated all three of us with regular meetings to prepare for North Africa. We came to a consensus on potential patient, caregiver, and healthcare provider materials to produce and send ahead electronically. Then we sought support.
 
Serving in a foreign country requires sacrifice. The sacrifice was a welcomed burden carried by us and by our families at home. Yet, the sacrifice us three therapists thought we experienced were microscopic compared to the healthcare providers we met living in North Africa.  Arriving in North Africa, we were met with new smells, lack of personal space and a massive culture shift. That’s just the perception of 3 tired, privileged Americans operating out of exhaustion. We were also met with smiles, handshakes (all with the right hand) and communal plates for eating without utensils. Those smiles. Those smiles were simply part of the affirmation of obedience with the sending. Operating with an awareness of power greater than ourselves, smiles became less necessary for external confirmation of why we were there.

We knew (some) why we were there – to serve. The rest we didn’t find out until we took more steps forward. A 14-hour plane flight was no longer on our mind when we heard more about the needs of the local people groups. We saw poverty, yet resilience. We saw ignorance, yet thanksgiving and joy. Imagine a 14- or 15-year-old mom who loves her baby boy so much, her joy radiates. She just knows she loves him, but why can he not sit up? She’s been holding him. The proceeding conversations (through a translator) helped me to understand a deeper level about the dominant religion and culture. She had been abandoned and didn’t want the same for her son. She wondered why he was different, even as an infant. So, she hid him away from others; he hid in her arms.
 
Keep in mind, all three therapists now in North Africa have spent their whole careers with the adult population. Pediatric theories, reflexive patterns, normal development, and intervention strategies were distant educational memories. This mom was in front of me with this 18-month-old child.  What do I do? I had traveled halfway around the world. Give me an 80-year-old patient who had a stroke, and I can write a plan of care (I was equally excited to see those patients too.); however, an 18-month-old? It was not my ability or skill that spoke for me or the translator. The next 20 minutes walked through some developmental and motor learning education that surprised me as it came off my lips. Even more surprising was this mom’s receptiveness. She soaked it up and was immediately positioning her child in strategies that facilitated his development through normal play. She also felt comfortable allowing him out of her safe embrace. He stretched and made his presence known. I later found out that this same mom had come to the other physician’s clinic* in hopes of answers, months before we showed up. The day the mom was at the clinic, other moms had their children with disabilities present. The physician told me, this mom immediately started weeping. Her tears were due to a year of hiding and fear of rejection and denial. She finally, literally, let go. She knew she was not alone.
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There are many other stories to share. Suffice it to say, a single healthcare provider makes a difference. However, a collaborative team makes a difference in others and us. I have shared the pediatric story with people who serve in areas other than healthcare and have learned of similar phenomena where they became aware of power outside themselves. There is power in numbers and there is power in He who sends. I am thankful for our interdisciplinary team. I am thankful for the physicians who had conversations with patients and caregivers before us and the PTs and OT who found a bond greater than ourselves. Did I mention the translator present with me, and the young mom was an indigenous trained nurse? What a team!"

With all sincerity and veracity,

Ryan M. Carrick, PhD, MHS, OTR/L

***Check out my book "Rehab the World" written for Physical Therapists to encourage us in our workplace and prepare us to serve those around us. If you like, please leave a review and spread the word!!***

Welcome to our new subscribers!! And if you haven't joined the conversation on Facebook, then find us @ptsonmission to continue to receive updates, encouragement, and information. Finally, tell a friend if you are benefiting from this site.

Today, I am excited to have one of my team members, Matt Bounds, join the blog and offer his thoughts and reflections from our N. Africa experience. It was a joy to have Matt on the trip and I think you will be challenged by some of his thoughts. He also has been a part of this blog before so you can catch up on his faith and work place blog by clicking here.

"I recently was given the honor to go on an amazing adventure to northern Africa.  Me and a couple of other therapists took off under our Father's provision and direction to find what He had in store for each of us in what turned out to be a whirlwind of a trip.
  
I want to start by giving some background on myself.  I am a 23 year military veteran.  I spent 6 years in active duty and the rest I have served in the reserves.  I have deployed three times over that 23 year period in support of various contingencies and missions.  With this came times of extreme loneliness, separation anxiety, depression, and spiritual warfare.  I am now working through this and God is healing in his own time.  These experiences shaped me at my core into who I thought God wanted me to be.  A strong, capable, independent, mission focused individual, which it did, but I’m finding that it also made me hard and distant, especially to the ones I love most.  I say all this to lay the groundwork for what happened on this trip.
 
We take off and I am immediately making parallel comparisons to my previous deployments. The flight, the anticipation, the fear of the unknown all slipping into my subconscious. Then we land, and after a brief introduction to our host home are whisked off to another city two hours and 6 armed checkpoints later. We then check in to our humble hotel and settle in for the night after dinner.  It is here that I am met with the demons of my past trips that I had been trying to shake off since we took off. The fear of being alone in a foreign place and surrounded by those that might not take too kindly to why I am there.
  
We wake up the next morning and I put on my brave face and take off into the days adventure. This is where God starts to rewrite my trauma into his perfect will. He introduced me to a doctor who has labored in this unforgiving and spiritually desolate place for years, and yet has the fortitude to continue to press on every day doing what God has called her to do.  We then enter homes where we minister to families seeking any assistance they can get for their loved ones. We are able to use our God given abilities to provide life-giving teaching and instruction to three amazing women of God who are seeking every opportunity to help their community and share his love. Unlike my previous trips in the military, where my work centered on taking life, we were instead giving life through our interactions throughout this day. The next day we are able to take part in their pediatric clinic and provide what little information we can gather up from our days in PT/OT school to pass along to these workers, but God showed himself powerful once again. We all were empowered beyond our skill/knowledge level and were able to recall information tucked back many years prior to assist in treating the children.
 
After our time in this city we headed back to our home city and settle in with the host family. Knowing my growing anxiety and struggle with loneliness God worked the circumstances where I had to stay with the host family in their home due to lodging issues. This was like a wave grace that washed over me in this moment. I was able to relax and rest in peace surrounded by familiar, God loving people once more. We were able to minister with their team a few more days, entering homes, meeting believers, hearing their stories, hiking mountains, and seeing the city from a literal thousand-foot view. We prayed as the sun rose one morning over the city, which was a powerful moment of realization of God’s sovereignty and power over the whole Earth. And not just the micro-universe we create in our little safe bubbles. We continued our work and observation, then headed home to the safety and security of the good old U.S. of A.
  
As I read this it sounds very choppy, which is okay because it still is very choppy in my head as well. This trip shook a lot of things loose, and I continue to wait for everything to settle into one coherent thought. But, as I breakdown what happened over there, it has occurred to me that God was working in me while I thought I was there to work for Him. What I mean by that is, He was healing my past scars and showing me that they were merely training events placed in my life to prepare me for his work.  This trip has been a soothing balm placed on my life and memory. I now have a memory of a mission that was God inspired, God ordained, and God powered. I have been in the presence of loneliness and been lifted up by my brothers instead of being left to flounder in doubt and fear. I was encouraged again and again throughout our trip that even when things are hard and lonely, our God is sufficient to help and hold us strong when we are faithful to follow his calling.

Finally, I was taught the true nature of the Church. Christ’s church is universal, not a building set on manmade foundations. It is a web of believers that stretches to the far edges of the world and it is alive and well among his people.  The believers we met in these dark places shine like a light on a hill. They can be seen from miles away and are spreading their light wherever they go.
  
So, I encourage you to sluff off the baggage and weights that hinder and slow you down. Take on our Father's yoke because it is light and continue your journey. Fear is merely focusing on events of past trauma, and anxiety is focusing on what might happen in the future. Instead, stand firm exactly where you are and focus on Christ and his work here and now. He will hold you strong and use your past experiences to shape your future endeavors." 

​Matt

***Check out my book "Rehab the World" written for Physical Therapists to encourage us in our workplace and prepare us to serve those around us. If you like, please leave a review and spread the word!!***

Welcome to our new subscribers!! And if you haven't joined the conversation on Facebook, then find us @ptsonmission to continue to receive updates, encouragement, and information. Finally, tell a friend if you are benefiting from this site. And if you missed part 1 of the N. Africa blog series you can get caught up by clicking here!

Several years ago I read a book that really impacted my views on international dscplshp work. That book was entitled “We are Not the Hero” by Jean Johnson, a veteran global dscpl maker. There were so many humbling thoughts and challenges in that book, but one of my main takeaways dealt with planning and thinking long range. She stated that before we do any type of work abroad we need to consider how our day one will affect day 10, day 100, and day 1000. In other words, we need to take extra care to consider how what we do in one moment will have an effect 3 years down the road.

And this idea was at the center of the 4 days in our second city, which, for security reasons, we will refer to as Jubilee. Because of the dominant religious belief of the unreached people group in the region, we had to be much more strategic in our work. So, we had two strategies. One of those strategies was to teach and train a handful of locals that were a part of Jubilee’s sports commission because soccer tournaments in that region are becoming wildly popular. The other was to complete more home visits with particular families in the region so that our team on the ground could further develop relationships.

And this is the long range thought in short term work that I am referencing. Unlike our training in the first city, none of the sports commission folks we trained were followers and none of the families of the targeted home visits were followers. But, the long term team living in Jubilee wanted to use us to deepen those existing relationships, serve and love these people and families like Jesus, and have the opportunity to spend more time with them by providing them a usable skill and also rehab care. That will have much more impact for day 100 and day 1000. With the plan in place, we went to work.
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Over the next couple of days, two of my team members, along with one of the full time team members living in the city went and ministered to a few families in the outskirts of Jubilee. And man, what an experience that was. These guys did awesome. They trekked out to a little village to visit one particular family whose patriarch was dealing with some orthopedic issues that were limiting his daily function. They were very peaceful and welcomed our team gladly. This allowed for assessment and treatment of hip abnormalities to help make the gentlemen more functional. It was a great example of what I like to call “bush PT'', just doing rehab out on a mat under a tree in the middle of a village. Prayerfully, the full time team will have an opportunity to speak the good news to this family in the months and years ahead because of the trust and relationship building through the home visits.

While those guys were out in the bush, I was working with another full time team member putting on the sports medicine training with the men (and surprisingly a few women (which we learned is not necessarily normal but in that past year or so women and girls were being allowed to participate in sports and coaching which is awesome) that were part of the sports commission. This was also a strategic opportunity to deepen relationships with these individuals and provide them with a targeted skill to function in the community.

So, we spent one morning in a lecture format going over proper warm-up techniques, common soccer injuries, phases of tissue healing, ways to help athletes recover through those different phases, etc. It was a unique and rewarding experience. I don’t have pictures from that lecture but a local photographer was there snapping photos so later that evening we noticed we had made the local facebook news page. The next day we all met at the tournament soccer field and did a morning lab in which we reviewed the previous day's material, had them practice all the different exercises and stretches, and practiced taping ankles. It was a great time and after they were checked off with some of the skills, we presented them with certificates as meeting the necessary requirements for “Sideline Technician.” 

​The third day in Jubilee, we had the opportunity to meet, encourage and provide some training to a local physical therapist working at an inpatient rehab center. He was a fantastic young man doing great work but benefitted from some time with us in an informal question and answer morning. While there, we were also able to help fit and train some of his residents in using different assistive devices and wheelchairs as many of the residents were patients with amputation. It actually was an impressive operation for a small entity in a city seemingly on the edge of the world.  

I hope one of your takeaways from these days is that even if we aren’t directly working with followers or directly speaking the good news, we can still utilize teaching and training if we consider long range impact in conjunction with a full time team on the ground. I am both hopeful and optimistic that the days of investing in all of these relationships will yield fruit in the lives of those we interacted with through the long term team living in Jubilee.
 
On our last day before flying out that evening, we had the privilege of sharing a lunch meal of camel, rice, and bananas with one of the handful of local believers in that city. Nolan (surname for security) was an amazing guy with an incredible story who started a farming operation as a means to employ others and make a living. In a region of the world that just had this aura of oppressiveness and darkness because of the dominant religion, what instantly stood out to me in being around Nolan was the indwelling joy that he exuded in knowing Christ. It was evident and tangible in his interactions and conversations. He had a contagiously joyous demeanor and smile. We were able to visit and support his shop and he even took us to visit his farm where we prayed over him and his business. It was a sweet time of fellowship and a great reminder that truly knowing and following Jesus gives otherworldly joy. Do you have that kind of joy and hope in our dark and broken world? And if you do, are you willing to share that with those around you?  Ponder that in your heart.

Jason

**Check out my book "Rehab the World" written for Physical Therapists to encourage us in our workplace and prepare us to serve those around us. If you like, please leave a review and spread the word!!***

Welcome to our new subscribers!! And if you haven't joined the conversation on Facebook, then find us @ptsonmission to continue to receive updates, encouragement, and information. Finally, tell a friend if you are benefiting from this site.

After a very long airplane ride in which I watched the sun set off of our tail and rise on our nose all on the same flight, my team and I landed in our country and then we had to catch a small, quick flight to the region in which we were working. I stepped out onto the tarmac and just soaked up the scenery. It was so dry, flat, vast and breezy. It kind of reminded me of the plains in the United States. We met up with our full time team and then began our two hour drive to the first city, Granville, (surname of city for security reasons) in which we would be working.
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What a drive it was! We were greeted with hundreds of little Bajaj’s (small, blue, 3 wheeled taxi vehicles) darting in front of and around us, herds of donkeys, cattle, and camels walking down the street, and several armed guard checkpoints where locals would also try to sell us some food or other wares. When we arrived at our hotel, we had a quick break to change and rest and then we finalized the next day's teaching/training and home visit plans with the team over a dinner of injera, goat tibs and bubbly water.

We were to spend a total of two days training and working in Granville. So, the next morning we all met up and began to teach three sweet local Christ following ladies and their team leader. These four ladies, an expat physician and three other women functioning as home health nurses, were eager to learn. God had been working through their organization and continued to grow their ability to get into homes of residents who have had any number of healthcare issues ranging from post-op orthopedic surgery to stroke, to spinal cord injuries, to amputation, to pediatric cerebral palsy and developmental delay and so on. But they were lacking some of the skill and understanding to help all these patients safely and effectively.
 
These compassionate women engagingly took notes, listened, and asked good questions as we taught them about tissue healing, exercise progression, transfer techniques, proper gait patterns with assistive devices, the importance of turning to avoid skin breakdown, wound assessment, managing low back pain, etc. It was a crash course in all things basic rehab over the course of two mornings and they soaked it up. As an aside - the training materials that we developed and used will be made available on the website.

After we completed all the training modules, we set out to do home visits with the ladies as clinical instructors. This allowed us to work alongside them and provide instruction as they practiced everything they learned. The first day of home visits was such a blessing. We were able to see the impact these women were already having on families and encourage them with their new found skills and knowledge.

The other clinical practice opportunity we had was helping them through their pediatric clinic. We were able to provide more clinical instruction and developmental exercise progressions for kids with cerebral palsy, developmental delay, amputation, etc. This was also just an incredible time of watching these ladies make notations and immediately apply what they learned to the kids and their families. They even began to incorporate patient and family education and did a fantastic job explaining to care givers why they were doing what they were doing.

Once we completed the two days, we gathered at the end of the day and provided that team of ladies a gift. It was a simple gift. All throughout the training and the patient visits, we were using new gait belts and they kept asking us what they should use instead since they didn’t have them. I wish I could have taken a picture of their faces on that last day when we told them that these brand new gait belts were theirs to keep as a graduation gift. It was an impactful moment and one that I will not soon forget.
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The third day, we were able to see a few sites before heading off to our next location so we took a historical tour of the old city of Granville with a local tour guide. We learned some fascinating history as this particular city has been around for around 1000 years. In fact, our tour guide took us to one of the original city gates which is over 1000 years old! We also had the opportunity to feed hyenas…that was nuts! We likely could have spent more time at this location but we had to leave for another city further east to continue the planned work of the trip. And this new city would prove to be a more difficult context spiritually due to the nature of the dominant religion in the area.

You can probably see from the first two days of our time in N. Africa that I am convinced one of the best ways to advance God’s kingdom in a short term context is teaching indigenous believers skills that they find valuable to reach their own people. Or providing the expertise needed for where God is leading their ministry work. When we are only there for a limited time we can be much more impactful by encouraging and training locals (in this case in home health and pediatric rehab skills) so that they can continue to minister and share about Jesus. We don’t know the language, the culture, and our time is limited. But even now, the ladies we trained are working in homes, helping patients, and sharing Christ.

This is not to say that we should neglect our job to speak about Christ, pray over patients, and live differently while we are there. And in some cases we did have that opportunity, especially Granville where this team of ladies lived. But it is to say that I am not capable of continuing on the work of discipleship, so having the local relationship and building up believers with competent skill is exponentially more powerful and effective.
 
More of the N. Africa adventure will be coming soon! I am also working on a video so you can see more of the country, culture, and rehab training :)
​
Jason

***Check out my book "Rehab the World" written for Physical Therapists to encourage us in our workplace and prepare us to serve those around us. If you like, please leave a review and spread the word!!***

Welcome to our new subscribers!! And if you haven't joined the conversation on Facebook, then find us @ptsonmission to continue to receive updates, encouragement, and information. Finally, tell a friend if you are benefiting from this site.

It’s good to be back! Both from a blogging stand point and from an actual being home standpoint. This blog was somewhat silent over the past couple of months due to a fall break family vacation and also all the planning, leading, working, and returning from an amazing, impactful medical laboring trip to North Africa!

That’s right, I recently led a small team of rehab professionals to work with a team in N. Africa ministering to an unreached people group. We had the opportunity to partner with a local long term team to provide rehab education, participate in home visits, and host a sports medicine training seminar. The final preparation took considerable amounts of time in the days and weeks leading up to our departure in early October, but the trip was a success for building further in-roads into the community and growing established relationships so the truth of Christ can be made known.

There is so much to discuss and share regarding the trip and I will work over the next several weeks and months to provide pictures and stories so you can get a sense of what it was like and how teaching and education short term work can be used for growing God’s kingdom. But we will get to that in the days and weeks ahead.

For now, I just want to let y’all know where I was and what was going on as to why the blog was silent. I also want to let you know that as I am able to publish more about this trip, I hope to weave in several different themes. Those thematic topics which will include:

The important role of teaching and training to advance God’s kingdom.

Importance of long range thought in short term work.

Lessons learned abroad that impact my life and work here.

Thoughts and lessons from some of my team members.

I hope that you will find all the information interesting, helpful, impactful and encouraging as I and my team members share our experiences. And I’m sure that others of you have also had experiences abroad this year and I would love to hear from you and publish your thoughts or lessons learned for the benefit of all the readers. Work well serving the Lord!

Jason

***Check out my book "Rehab the World" written for Physical Therapists to encourage us in our workplace and prepare us to serve those around us. If you like, please leave a review and spread the word!!***

Welcome to our new subscribers!! And if you haven't joined the conversation on Facebook, then find us @ptsonmission to continue to receive updates, encouragement, and information. Finally, tell a friend if you are benefiting from this site.

Fall sports season is upon us yet again so it’s always good to remind ourselves as clinicians and remind parents, coaches, players with whom we interact about the very real risk of concussion, or sport related concussion (SRC) as it is sometimes described in the literature. I recently pulled out an older JOSPT volume and was perusing through it when I ran across a great review article dealing with SRC. I read through it and thought it was worth sharing on the cusp of so many sports starting back with the new school year.

The Potential Role of the Cervical Spine in Sports-Related Concussion: Clinical Perspectives and Considerations for Risk Reduction.

Essentially, the authors highlight the prevalence and risks related to SRC. But what made this article interesting and applicable to us as PT’s is the fact that the authors were pulling studies that looked at potential modifiable factors to help decrease risk of SRC. Once those factors are identified, then preventative exercises could be incorporated to help maintain risk reduction.

What were the things that were identified? Factors such as neck strength, neck girth, and neck posture were all factors that can modify SRC risk. The authors cited good evidence that increased strength and neck girth help reduce risk of SRC. In fact, one study in this review showed that for every 1 lb increase in neck strength, the sports-related concussion risk decreased by 5%. The reviewers also cited that may be why there is a sex difference. Females tend to have higher rates of SRC than males likely related to the strength and girth component. The other fascinating factor was forward head posturing. Most student athletes have forward neck translation due to phones, tech, etc. just like most people have this posturing. But in one cited study that flexion/extension imbalance decreased the strength ratio in the neck thus increasing head acceleration during impact.

I believe this is pertinent information. I am finishing post surgical rehab on two football players in order to return them to the sport by the fall and need to make sure that before they are done we go over some of this information and the exercises. We need to make sure that when we are treating athletes, we don’t forget about the potential concussive forces they will face. We can prepare both men and women (especially women since they are at greater risk) by working on posture exercises and neck isometrics, the important components identified in this study.

I hope you found this helpful and I hope that you incorporate this information for the health of your patients.

Jason

***Check out my book "Rehab the World" written for Physical Therapists to encourage us in our workplace and prepare us to serve those around us. If you like, please leave a review and spread the word!!***

Welcome to our new subscribers!! And if you haven't joined the conversation on Facebook, then find us @ptsonmission to continue to receive updates, encouragement, and information. Finally, tell a friend if you are benefiting from this site.

There are many verses that discuss the reality that our work as Christians matter and that it has eternal significance. We are called into our vocations to work hard and work will for the benefit of others and so that God gets glory. And even if we don't see significant reward, we know that honoring God will result in heavenly reward.

I recently saw this quote from Daniel Doriani and it just gave me pause and challenged me afresh that my vocation has immense purpose in God's Kingdom. Yours does too. So, I hope you are encouraged and challenged by this wisdom.

I especially appreciate the call to love our co-workers and customers (patients) because when we love people different from us or  love them while they are going through a hard time, that is the essence of the Gospel. And when people are curious as to why we do that, we have an answer for this hope and love we profess. I hope we remember that we are serving the Lord as we work and love others. Watch how that changes your perspective this week! 

***Check out my book "Rehab the World" written for Physical Therapists to encourage us in our workplace and prepare us to serve those around us. If you like, please leave a review and spread the word!!***

Jason