Intentional Exercise: Integration of Therapeutic Exercise and Manual Therapy

8 a.m. - 5 p.m. | Sept 6-7, 2025 | UNMC Omaha
Presented by: Tim Fearon, PT, DPT, FAAOMPT

UNMC’s Physical Therapy program will hold this 2-day continuing education event in the Bennett Hall Lab Room 4016 on the University of Nebraska Medical Center Campus, Omaha, NE.

17 Contact hours

Course Description

This class is intended to assist the clinician in maintaining their primary focus on enabling patient independence from the medical system including the need for PT.
The stratification of patients can be effectively summarized as those requiring intervention, rehabilitation, management or prophylaxis. The recent trend to evidence-based practice has brought along with it an unintentional and inappropriate bias toward the intervention phase.

This class will be biased toward the rehabilitation, management, and prophylaxis phases while demonstrating how exercise can be integrated with manual therapy techniques to become a therapeutic intervention. There will be a complete focus on therapeutic exercise and appropriate education for the patient.

With the decreasing reimbursements in physical therapy and the burgeoning business models of physical therapy delivery, exercise has commonly been generalized and delegated to ancillary staff. The exercise concepts will require physical therapist knowledge of anatomy, pathology, chronology and attainable patient goals through the application of genuinely therapeutic exercise.

Basic principles of facilitation will be integrated with the use and elimination of gravity and body weight directed toward the patient's functional needs. There will be an integration of proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation, manual resistance applied during the flow of manual therapy techniques, gravity assistance, gravity resistance, and external resistance. Additionally, the progression towards realistic home exercise without sophisticated equipment will be integrated.

This class is willfully designed to be efficient with your time as well as effective with developing, improving or mastering your skill set. All enrollees will receive the didactic portion of the class before the actual class day allowing time for absorption before the physical interface. This will ideally liberate the class to spend the majority of the time together in a genuine “hands on” refinement of skills to be assimilated into their present matrix.

Course Objectives

At the completion of the course the student will:

1. Demonstrate understanding of a conceptual framework for clinical reasoning in orthopedic and manual therapy (OMT).
2. Propose the foundational concepts of clinical reasoning in OMT in the lower quarter region primarily focusing on the lumbar spine and hip.
3. Demonstrate understanding of the genuinely common clinical syndromes in the lumbar spine and lower quarter, and articulate the rapid recognition of them.
4. In the genuinely common clinical syndromes, articulate the variations that drive examination and treatment choices with or without the confirmation of a primary diagnostic.
5. Articulate the capacity to integrate foundational principles with actual patients who may include multiple dysfunctions beyond that of a singular diagnostic category.
6. Articulate signs and probable symptoms of common clinical syndromes in the lumbar spine and lower quarter.
7. Demonstrate the ability to analyze unrecognized clinical presentation patterns in the
   framework of clinical reasoning concepts that can be applied universally in musculoskeletal examination and treatment.
8. Deduce the decision process for determining how the exam determines the type, volume, and magnitude of treatment in all regions involved in the current patient presentation. Demonstrate command of skills using accurate and informative feedback from your patients with each treatment session to enable progression of patient cases.
9. Engage the learner in intellectually honest endeavors to obtain the ability to apply the
   concepts to actual patient care beyond the theoretical constructs using an evidence informed methodology without rigid attempts to adhere to algorithmic memorization.
10. Develop recognition that the foundations of patient care are multi faceted with dependence upon each other. These are academic knowledge, understanding research for what it says and what it does not say, clinical experience and skill as a dominant need for patient interface and clinical decision making, and patient preference in decisions regarding care.
11. Demonstrate appropriate therapeutic exercise techniques for the intervention stage hip and/or lumbar patient.
12. Demonstrate appropriate therapeutic exercise techniques for progression to the
    rehabilitation stage hip and/or lumbar patient. Develop appropriate therapeutic exercise interventions for common clinical syndromes in the lumbopelvic region and the hip.
13. Perform all exercise interventions intended for home exercise assignment.

Course Schedule

Day 1

8:00-9:00: Intro and questions from pre-course content
9:00-10:45: Lumbar Spine (techniques to facilitate flexion, extension, and rotation)
10:45-11:00: Break
11:00-12:45: Pelvic patterns of control
12:45-1:45: Lunch Break
1:45-3:30: Hip & Stable Trunk
3:30-3:45: Break
3:45-5:00: Lumbar control lab

Day 2

8:00-8:30: Questions/Review
8:30-10:00: Upper Cervical Spine (integration of manual therapy and exercise)
10:00-10:15: Break
10:15-12:30: Cervicothoracic Junction (integration of manual therapy and exercise)
12:30-1:30: Lunch
3:00-3:15: Break
3:15-4:30: Scapulothoracic (integration of manual therapy and exercise)
4:30-5:00: Questions/Review/Case Study Application

Target Audience

This course is open to licensed PTs, PTAs, and DPT students in their final year.

Coffee, Snacks, and a Boxed Lunch will be provided each day. Please bring your own water bottle.

Cancellation/Refund Policy for September course

100% if canceled 2 weeks in advance (by August 23).
50% if canceled up to 2 days prior to the course.
No refund if canceled the day before the course.