Full Course Description

Module 1: Fall Risk and Neuroplasticity

Whether your patients’ goals are to return to work, play with their grandkids, or travel the world, your hard work helps them progress toward their functional goals.

But one fall can severely set back progress and turn your patient’s life upside down, resulting in rapidly declining health, extended hospital stays, financial loss, fear, and isolation. Falls can often be predicted and prevented if you know what to look for, but all too often, clinicians are so focused on the injury or disability at hand that fall risks are overlooked – until it’s too late.

Become a Fall Prevention Specialist and learn how to help patients avoid falls while retaining the strength, balance, and mobility it takes to stay functionally independent.

Built on today’s best practices, this hands-on program will show you how to better predict falls with a comprehensive risk assessment that combines the best evaluations currently available. Expand your rehab toolbox for fall prevention and post-fall rehab with interventions you can use immediately. Design robust, innovative plans of care for high risk patients with specific impairments, from diabetes to Parkinson’s.

And finally, learn how to develop an effective fall prevention program using tools and strategies that have helped countless patients leave their fear of falling behind.

Confidently guide your patients to a fall-proof future!

Become a Certified Fall Prevention Specialist (CFPS)

The hard work that Certified Fall Prevention Specialists do can help patients not only after a fall has occurred, but also avoid future falls.

Learn more now: https://www.evergreencertifications.com/evg/detail/1021/certified-fall-prevention-specialist--cfps

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Integrate the latest advances in fall prevention and the most current changes form the CDC into your practice.
  2. Employ comprehensive assessments to identify issues with balance, visual-spatial functioning, proprioception and other root causes of fall risk.
  3. Assess available interventions so you can choose the appropriate ones for safely restoring balance, mobility and function in patients with varying root causes of fall risk.
  4. Integrate multiple approaches and exercise programs for better outcomes with fallers and patients at high-risk of falling.
  5. Determine the safest landing strategies that your patients can employ to reduce the impact of falls.
  6. Develop home exercise programs for patients so they can build strength and coordination.
  7. Utilize tips to recognize abnormal gait patterns in fallers.
  8. Employ ideas and plans that will protect older adults, patients using oxygen, and others at high-risk of falling from injury.
  9. Evaluate parameters for safely intensifying rehab with patients who fall.
  10. Apply best practices for educating and engaging non-compliant patients to reduce their risk of falling.
  11. Investigate evidence-based fall prevention programs that can be used in your facility.
  12. Evaluate home-based risk factors that contribute to falls and determine how these risk factors can be mitigated.

Outline

HOT TOPICS AND INNOVATIONS IN FALL PREVENTION

  • What fall prevention will look like in 1, 5, and 10 years
HANDS-ON LAB: PREDICT AND PREVENT FALLS WITH A COMPREHENSIVE RISK ASSESSMENT
  • Practice today’s best evaluations for:
    • Balance
    • Visual-spatial function
    • Sensory-motor integration
    • Proprioception
    • Vestibular function
    • Gait and mobility
    • Age-related degeneration
    • Home safety
    • Pharmacological side effects
HANDS-ON LAB: EXPAND YOUR REHAB TOOLBOX FOR FALL PREVENTION AND POST-FALL REHAB
  • Practice effective techniques you can use immediately to:
    • Restore balance, mobility, and function
    • Minimize fall impact and injury
    • Treat dizziness and vertigo
    • Improve multitasking, coordination, and gait
    • Resolve vision problems that contribute to falls
    • Boost cognition, memory, and focus
    • Reduce environmental fall risks
HAND-ON LAB: INTEGRATE MULTIPLE APPROACHES FOR BETTER OUTCOMES
  • Practice combining:
    • Balance and gait training
    • Vestibular rehabilitation
    • Gaze stabilization
    • Multitasking interventions
    • Musculoskeletal soft tissue techniques
    • Graded motor imagery
    • Home exercise programming
    • Nutrition
    • Environmental modification
    • Safety reminders
    • Orthotics and gait devices
    • Clinical applications of neuroplasticity
HANDS-ON LAB: DESIGN ROBUST, INNOVATIVE PLANS OF CARE FOR YOUR PATIENTS
  • Practice developing treatment strategies for high risk patients with specific impairments, including:
    • Traumatic brain injury
    • Stroke
    • Multiple sclerosis
    • Parkinson’s disease
    • Spinal cord injury
    • Diabetes
    • Pain
    • Age-related changes

KEYS TO SUCCESSFULLY TREATING NONCOMPLIANT PATIENTS AND ENLISTING FAMILY SUPPORT

ARE YOU LEAVING MONEY ON THE TABLE?

  • Coding and billing updates for fall prevention and post-fall rehab
  • Justify rehab with the right progress measures and documentation
  • Avoid denials and audits with these tips
CASE STUDIES: PUT KNOWLEDGE TO PRACTICE
  • Case study 1: Evaluate a client’s home for extrinsic risk factors
  • Case study 2: Apply advanced balance training and multi-tasking techniques
  • Case study 3: Integrate visual testing and gaze stabilization
  • Case study 4: Navigate pharmacological side effects and comorbidities
  • Case study 5: Overcome barriers to effective strategy implementation

DEVELOP AN EFFECTIVE FALL PREVENTION PROGRAM FOR YOUR FACILITY

BECOME YOUR REGION’S GO-TO FALL PREVENTION SPECIALIST

  • The insider’s guide to specialization and professional networking
  • Build referrals faster: effectively market your fall prevention program

Target Audience

  • Physical Therapists
  • Physical Therapist Assistants
  • Occupational Therapists
  • Occupational Therapy Assistants
  • Physician Assistants
  • Nurse Practitioners
  • Nurses
  • Nursing Home Administrators

Copyright : 08/15/2019

Module 2: Gait Cycle, Shoes & Orthotics, Perturbation

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Integrate the latest advances in fall prevention and the most current changes form the CDC into your practice.
  2. Employ comprehensive assessments to identify issues with balance, visual-spatial functioning, proprioception and other root causes of fall risk.
  3. Assess available interventions so you can choose the appropriate ones for safely restoring balance, mobility and function in patients with varying root causes of fall risk.
  4. Integrate multiple approaches and exercise programs for better outcomes with fallers and patients at high-risk of falling.
  5. Determine the safest landing strategies that your patients can employ to reduce the impact of falls.
  6. Develop home exercise programs for patients so they can build strength and coordination.
  7. Utilize tips to recognize abnormal gait patterns in fallers.
  8. Employ ideas and plans that will protect older adults, patients using oxygen, and others at high-risk of falling from injury.
  9. Evaluate parameters for safely intensifying rehab with patients who fall.
  10. Apply best practices for educating and engaging non-compliant patients to reduce their risk of falling.
  11. Investigate evidence-based fall prevention programs that can be used in your facility.
  12. Evaluate home-based risk factors that contribute to falls and determine how these risk factors can be mitigated.

Copyright : 08/15/2019

Module 3: Preventing Falls

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Integrate the latest advances in fall prevention and the most current changes form the CDC into your practice.
  2. Employ comprehensive assessments to identify issues with balance, visual-spatial functioning, proprioception and other root causes of fall risk.
  3. Assess available interventions so you can choose the appropriate ones for safely restoring balance, mobility and function in patients with varying root causes of fall risk.
  4. Integrate multiple approaches and exercise programs for better outcomes with fallers and patients at high-risk of falling.
  5. Determine the safest landing strategies that your patients can employ to reduce the impact of falls.
  6. Develop home exercise programs for patients so they can build strength and coordination.
  7. Utilize tips to recognize abnormal gait patterns in fallers.
  8. Employ ideas and plans that will protect older adults, patients using oxygen, and others at high-risk of falling from injury.
  9. Evaluate parameters for safely intensifying rehab with patients who fall.
  10. Apply best practices for educating and engaging non-compliant patients to reduce their risk of falling.
  11. Investigate evidence-based fall prevention programs that can be used in your facility.
  12. Evaluate home-based risk factors that contribute to falls and determine how these risk factors can be mitigated.

Copyright : 08/15/2019

Module 4: Case Studies + Special Populations

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Integrate the latest advances in fall prevention and the most current changes form the CDC into your practice.
  2. Employ comprehensive assessments to identify issues with balance, visual-spatial functioning, proprioception and other root causes of fall risk.
  3. Assess available interventions so you can choose the appropriate ones for safely restoring balance, mobility and function in patients with varying root causes of fall risk.
  4. Integrate multiple approaches and exercise programs for better outcomes with fallers and patients at high-risk of falling.
  5. Determine the safest landing strategies that your patients can employ to reduce the impact of falls.
  6. Develop home exercise programs for patients so they can build strength and coordination.
  7. Utilize tips to recognize abnormal gait patterns in fallers.
  8. Employ ideas and plans that will protect older adults, patients using oxygen, and others at high-risk of falling from injury.
  9. Evaluate parameters for safely intensifying rehab with patients who fall.
  10. Apply best practices for educating and engaging non-compliant patients to reduce their risk of falling.
  11. Investigate evidence-based fall prevention programs that can be used in your facility.
  12. Evaluate home-based risk factors that contribute to falls and determine how these risk factors can be mitigated.

Copyright : 08/15/2019

BONUS | Gait Strategies: How the Determinants of Gait Impact Function, Mobility & Safety

Treatment of a patient’s abnormal gait can be challenging work. The key to this challenge is not looking immediately on the rigid mechanics of the phases of gait; rather, we must return to the basics of neuromuscular control, center of mass control and proximal stability.

Watch as your treatment of this patient population is transformed by focusing on the 6 determinants of gait with an emphasis on pelvic stability, pelvic mobility, foot and ankle interactions, and reciprocal arm swing. You will learn evidence-based exercises, activities, and treatment strategies that can directly impact not only gait but everyday function, mobility, and safety with our patients.

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Evaluate the 6 Determinants of gait and how they impact the phases of gait and reduce energy expenditure during gait.
  2. Investigate current evidence justifying the utilization of the 6 determinants of gait in the clinical setting.
  3. Demonstrate activities, exercises, and treatment strategies to improve each of the 6 determinants of gait.

Outline

History of gait study and development
Energy Expenditure vs. conservation
Determinants-Phase-Curtate Cycloid
Metabolic cost of transport
What the “phases of gait” neglect
Why people don’t fall during “gait”
Research justifying each determinant of gait
Sit-Stand

  • Ab Ball Press
  • Pelvic Teeter Totter
Lateral Pelvic Tilt
  • Trochanter Tension
Knee Flexion at Midstance
  • Half-Stand WB
Knee/Ankle/Foot Interactions
  • Soleus stretch
  • Gastroclock
Pelvic Rotation/Hip Flexion
  • Seated Rotation
  • Iliopsoa stretch
Reciprocal Arm Swing
Reciprocal Patterns

Target Audience

  • Physical Therapists
  • Physical Therapist Assistants
  • Occupational Therapists
  • Occupational Therapy Assistants
  • Athletic Trainers

Copyright : 07/25/2019

BONUS | Empower Clients with Mobility Impairments: Using Technology to Improve Quality of Life

Individuals with physical limitations want to take ownership of their lives, move forward, and gain independence!  To make this happen, they need to know what options exist in the marketplace, how to obtain them, and how to best use them.

Learn about the latest and greatest in assistive technology, especially pertaining to wheelchair functions and accessories. We will focus on the various options available to individualize mobility equipment to maximize the end-user’s experience and independence. Learn how smart phones interface with power wheelchairs, how various controls are operated using Bluetooth devices that interface with power wheelchairs. Options will be presented that range from very simple to complex, affordable and main-stream to specialized and potentially cost-prohibitive. You’ll learn the recommended process for prescribing and obtaining assistive technology devices, as well as take home information and resources that can be shared with your patients immediately!

Program Information

Objectives

  1. Determine the role of the health care provider in procuring assistive technology
  2. Distinguish the pros and cons of both power and manual wheelchairs
  3. Assess at least 3 different applications of Bluetooth technology in improving independence in power wheelchair users

Outline

  • Introduction to assistive technology
  • Provide definitions and examples of assistive technology pertaining to wheelchair users (both simple add-on devices such as luggage carriers or cup holders, to complex such as a power-assist device or alternative power wheelchair controls)
  • Provide guidelines for equipment ordering process, including guidelines for insurance coverage based on the device and the patient’s diagnosis
  • Discuss alternative funding sources or community organizations that can help with access to assistive technology options
  • Define wheelchair classifications, manual and power
  • Discuss modifications necessary within a person’s home and transportation to accommodate manual versus power wheelchairs
  • Provide overview of power assist options for manual wheelchair users – a hybrid between power and manual
  • Provide outline of new power wheelchair features that utilize Bluetooth technology
  • Present and discuss case study for practical application of specific devices for a power wheelchair user
  • Questions & answers

Target Audience

  • Physical Therapists
  • Physical Therapist Assistants
  • Occupational Therapists
  • Occupational Therapy Assistants
  • Athletic Trainers

Copyright : 07/26/2019