A PT's Perspective: Natalie of Beyond Basic Play

Please join me in welcoming Natalie of Beyond Basic Play to our PT Month celebration! Natalie is a pediatric physical therapist who loves running around with her clients and helping them meet their milestones, while educating parents on how to help their children reach their full potential.

Natalie, with her therapy dog, Bear.

 

My life as a physical therapist in five words:

Never stop learning and moving.

Four qualities every pediatric PT should have:

• Patient! :)
• Flexible
• Sense of humor
• Quick thinker

Three resources I can't live without:

1. Physical Therapy for Children by Suzann Campbell, Robert Palisano, and Margo Orlin.
2. Pinterest-for all types of therapy ideas.
3. Twitter-to search for relevant physical therapy/pediatric news/events.

Two words (or more!) of advice for parents to develop a working relationship with their child's PT:

Be honest and open with your physical therapist about your child's medical/birth history and about your concerns/goals for therapy. Also give your physical therapist a chance even though the first session may not go as smoothly as expected, but do tell them any concerns you have about how the therapy session went.

A word of advice for the parents of a child who recently started receiving PT:

Don't be afraid to ask your physical therapist questions about your child's care if you don't understand why/what they are doing. You are with your child more than anyone else during the week, so it's important you fully understand what is going on during therapy in order to help your child reach their therapy goals.

One dream for the field of physical therapy:

One dream is that I can eventually treat patient's directly without having to get a doctor's diagnosis first, in order to help kiddos as soon as possible and without losing time during their key periods of growth.

What I do to rest and relax (or in OT terms, how I maintain occupational balance):

I like to go on walks and jogs with my therapy dog, Bear :) Oh, and I like to blog too, of course!

Natalie, thank you so much for taking the time to stop by and share your perspective! Readers, you can keep up with Natalie by visiting her blog, following her on Facebook, seeing what she's up to on Pinterest, or sending her a tweet!