By John Fakler

Imagine facing your students in a large lecture hall but you can’t stand up to teach due to debilitating foot pain. 

That was the grim, real life scenario for one University of Miami Law School Professor and current Reaction Rehab client. Now recovered, her experience as a patient of Carina Wiklund at the Miami based physical therapy center has been life changing − and life reaffirming, she said.

“It [standing] completely changes the energy of the classroom, especially in a large class setting,” said the law professor, a 30-year veteran of numerous physical therapy centers that didn’t quite work out. “Carina is the only therapist that within a few months had me able to walk around the class. Her knowledge of anatomy and body mechanics is extraordinary—she is at a level above.”

There is no cycling patients through the office in a mechanized fashion, a fundamental difference between Reaction Rehab and many other physical therapy shops, added the law professor.

Reaction Rehab’s approach to physical therapy is holistic, applying their expertise to a patient’s emotional wellbeing with the same fervor as with physical manipulations and therapeutic exercises.

It’s all about attitude, Wiklund said, and patients can change for the better on a dime.

“You’re treating people’s lives, not their knee pain, and like so many things attitude is a huge component of being a therapist. By having an amazing attitude—the most negative, angry and pessimistic person that sees no light ends up feeling better.”

The physical therapists at Reaction Rehab love what they do and the patients can feel that. Wiklund said, “What’s in your mind translates into your physical being. For example, having chronic pain often leads to depression, loss of motivation, and avoidance of community or social events. We’re here to give the patients the support they need, teach them exercises and certain mobilizations to relieve pain, and coach them on how to do it on their own when they’re no longer in need of coming to the clinic.”

While every client’s needs are different, the therapists at Reaction Rehab spend their sessions retraining, loosening and mobilizing joints, performing various levels of massage, applying ultrasound techniques to stimulate blood flow and deep heat treatments that stimulate healing. Electrotherapy that helps block the pain receptors in the nervous system is popular with patients for pain management. Anti-inflammatory topical medications are sometimes used as an adjunct to standard treatment protocols. The goals, ultimately, are to help the patients become functional and pain free with their mobility and activities of daily living. 

In addition to treatments of pain management, the therapists at Reaction Rehab provide postural re-education, proprioception exercises, gait training/ambulation, balance training, conditioning, post-surgery rehab, therapeutic exercises, bed mobility activities, transfer training, and more.

“The woman has a healing touch, and I just don’t understand it,” the law professor said of Wiklund. “She has literally changed my ability to function in my profession−that’s someone you want to put your health in the hands of.”

For more information about Reaction Rehab, call 305-856-9000 or visit their website at www.reactionrehab.com.