Joey Wahler (Host): It's a new merger, so we're the partnership between Discovery Physical Therapy and Jefferson Healthcare. Our guest is Amy Irene Lynch. She's a physical therapist and owner of Discovery Physical Therapy. This is To Your Health from Jefferson Healthcare. Thanks for joining us. I am Joey Wahler. Amy Irene, hi there. Welcome.

Amy Irene Lynch, PT: Thank you for having me. I'm glad to be here.

Host: Great to have you with us to talk about this partnership. So first, the new venture is being called Jefferson Healthcare Discovery Rehabilitation. So, how did this partnership happen? What was the impetus for it?

Amy Irene Lynch, PT: Well, I think that, as the owner of Discovery Physical Therapy, I was ready to be able to expand and grow our services to better suit our community. And I knew that joining up with Jefferson Healthcare would allow us to be able to do that. And so, we began talking together and they felt the same way. They felt like they wanted to be able to be out in the county, increasing access to the members of our community that live outside of town, which is where we're located. And together, we would be able to do that.

Host: So just to take a quick step back, how did you get started with your business in the first place?

Amy Irene Lynch, PT: Yes, I've owned Discovery Physical Therapy for 18 years. And prior to owning it, I actually worked here for the previous owner who mentored me. And we partnered together for me to take over her business and she worked for me and eventually retired. And then, I continued the business on for over the last 18 years, serving our community through physical therapy and occupational therapy as well, over the years, exercise classes also. So, it's been a really great journey.

Host: Yeah, it sounds like it. So before we talk specifics in a moment or two, generally speaking, what does this merger mean for East Jefferson County, your current patients and, of course, Jefferson Healthcare patients as well.

Amy Irene Lynch, PT: So, our current patients are still going to be coming to our location and seeing the people that they've come to know and trust here, the staff will be coming along. And we're still going to be Discovery Physical Therapy, but now Jefferson Healthcare Discovery. So, it's going to feel really familiar to the patients who've been coming to this clinic.

The benefit and what it means for our community is that, with the support and the partnership with Jefferson Healthcare, we will be better able to recruit more staff, more clinical staff in particular in order to decrease wait times, and also expand services, do even more services than we've been able to do with the staffing that we've had, so that our community has access to more services, more rehab services closer to home.

Host: Speaking of services, what services exactly, what specialties do you and yours offer? And why is that so important to those in East Jefferson County, would you say?

Amy Irene Lynch, PT: So, we offer wide variety of physical therapy services right now. We do post-surgical rehabilitation after total knee replacements, total hip replacements, total shoulder replacements, all kinds of orthopedic surgeries. We work with people who have injured themselves in sports injuries and also working on the job, helping people get back to work and being able to provide for their families.

And we work with our members of our community who are struggling with balance and vestibular issues, so working on improving balance and safety and reducing fall risk. And so, we do all kinds of things for our community and have for a long time. Our specialty services would be working with women's health and pelvic health.

So, we work with people of all genders and ages who are struggling with bowel and bladder dysfunction, incontinence, constipation, pelvic pain, and helping to restore function to these really important areas and these really important functions of our body that really contribute to an important quality of life.

Host: Gotcha. So, that certainly covers a lot of ground. Let me ask you specifically about some of that. First, you mentioned post-surgical patients. In terms of rehab there, what are the things that generally are most important when someone undergoes, for instance, a replacement of a knee or a shoulder, et cetera?

Amy Irene Lynch, PT: Yeah. When you begin physical therapy, hopefully, you actually meet us before you have surgery, so we can really help you prepare for what that initial recovery time is going to be like, because it can be really hard those first couple of weeks at home. So, helping people set up the right kind of support for themselves with family and friends, and also expectations around what the experience is going to be like so that they don't feel scared and they realize that it's normal. We usually see people within a few days after surgery. And in that first couple of weeks, it's really about making sure that people can take care of themselves and they're safe and they're doing the right things at home.

And then, as we get further out, two weeks out, four, six, it goes further out, then we're really restoring function, exercise, range of motion, working on, for the lower extremities, walking, reducing the dependency on assistive devices and getting more functionally independent, ultimately returning to all of the things that people need to do in their daily lives. For upper extremities, we're progressing towards being able to use our arms in the ways that we need to for everyday living, and it's a process over many weeks and a progression that we help walk people through so they know what to do. They have the best outcomes.

Host: Regarding sports injuries, they're of course always a big part of PT. So, what are the more common injuries you deal with, and what's your response there?

Amy Irene Lynch, PT: Yeah. So, we see all kinds of injuries from ankle injuries, ankle foot injuries, knee injuries, hip, low back. I mean, really, it's depending on the sport, really kind of drives the injuries that happen. I mean, lately we see a lot of pickleball injuries because so many people are playing pickleball and it's become such a popular sport.

And really, as a physical therapist, we are wanting to keep people active. We want people to be active. We know that's good for their health, their longevity, and also just the joy that we experience in life. And so, we are really trying to keep people in their sport, while we're rehabilitating them as much as possible and looking at the potential joint restrictions, tightness that might exist in a joint or the muscular tissue around to help restore flexibility, the strength they need to be able to do it, any injury that may have damaged tissue, and how to walk them through, making sure that tissue heals completely so that they can return to their sport. And then, just also how to return to the sport without reinjuring themselves and how to continue playing in a way that they aren't injuring themselves as well.

Host: Gotcha. How about rehab for postpartum mothers? What's involved there? We don't hear as much about that, right?

Amy Irene Lynch, PT: I think it's good we're hearing a lot more about that these days. So, our awareness about the importance of rehabilitation during and after pregnancy, that awareness is definitely rising. So, we work with women during pregnancy to help with common body pain issues that happen in pregnancy, low back pain, for example, is so common and very treatable. If a woman has low back pain during pregnancy and it isn't addressed, they're much more likely to have back pain after pregnancy that lasts in the time when they need to be able to take care of their infants. So, addressing it during pregnancy and resolving it with exercise and body mechanics, retraining how we move, how we sit, how we sleep, and keeping ourselves strong when the body's changing so much, is so important. And these issues are very treatable.

Then after the babies are born, helping women to know how to get their bodies restore form and function. So, strengthening again, bringing form back so that the body can do all the things that are necessary in motherhood, taking care of our children without injury or pain. We also work with the pelvic floor and pelvic floor musculature to restore bowel, bladder function, intimacy, return to intimacy without pain, super important. And there's a big role that we serve for women during that time to help them with all those things.

Host: You touched on this one earlier, but just to expand a bit, you also do rehab for patients with balance disorders, so what can they expect?

Amy Irene Lynch, PT: Balance is really interesting and fun to work with, because our brain creates our balance through many different systems. The inner ear is a very important part of it, as well as the ability to feel in the body, and the strength to recover from a loss of balance. And so when people come and see us, they're often really surprised by all the different ways that we are addressing their balance, by challenging their vestibular system, for example. And then, working on strength and flexibility so that they get off balance, they can catch themselves before they fall, for example.

So, there's just a lot of ways that we can challenge them dynamically where, you know, you're standing on balance foam, for example, maybe your eyes are focused on something, and then you're moving your head side to side. So, we're really challenging your inner ear so that when you're on the sand—we live near water here in our town—and when you're walking on the sand and you turn your head to talk to your friend, that you don't fall over, right? This is a very common thing that happens. So, there's a lot of ways that we can work to improve that by increasing the function of those systems so that when you are walking on the beach with your friend or in the woods and you have to turn your head to look for something that you see, that you don't fall over. And if you do stumble over that root or over that rock, that you have the strength and flexibility to catch yourself and balance yourself in that next step and not fall down and hurt yourself.

Host: How about for existing PT patients, either with Discovery or with Jefferson, anything they should know about potential changes to their care?

Amy Irene Lynch, PT: So, the transition is going to happen in stages, the first step is that Jefferson Healthcare will be acquiring Discovery Physical Therapy at the end of this year. But there's a lot of steps for them to put in place their systems that they need in order to function as a hospital here in this location.

So, Discovery Physical Therapy will actually be continuing to function for the patient as it always has for at least three months while the hospital putS things in place to be able to take over all of the operations and functions that we do here. So for at least a little while, it's going to feel really similar. Then, come end of March, there will be access on myChart, say, to your physical therapy summaries, your visit summaries, right? So now, there'll be this connection between the hospital and the services that are provided here that they haven't had before. Will they be able to communicate with us, with their physicians, see their visit summaries, ask questions all through that platform? Because we will all be on there together. I think those would be the things patients will notice, is that the communication is going to be smoother between Jefferson Healthcare and the services they receive here.

Host: A couple of other things. One being, would you say there is a new advancement in the world of physical therapy that you're most interested in?

Amy Irene Lynch, PT: Oh gosh. There's always advancements where I think that's one of the fun things about working in medicine is that things are always changing, right? I think that one thing that we do as pelvic PTs is we're using real-time ultrasound imaging. So, we have ultrasound imaging that when you come here, we actually can show you what your pelvic floor muscles look like inside your body. And when you tighten them, you can see them lift your bladder and lower your bladder down. So for patients who have pelvic organ prolapse or leakage where they're really working on trying to control that, it's a really great way to see muscles that you can't normally see. And that's something that physical therapists are using more recently, as well as that technology for other muscles as well, like the abdominals postpartum, and working on getting abdominal muscles to work better.

Host: It seems like nowadays there are more clear and better images of things throughout the medical world than ever before. Finally, in summary here, what's most exciting about this for you? You've obviously really grown your business to the point where it's so highly thought of that all of this could come about. What to you is most exciting as you begin this new journey here?

Amy Irene Lynch, PT: I'm really excited about the growth opportunities to serve our community, working together with Jefferson Healthcare, that we're going to be able to really expand and offer more services here. And that I'll be able to be a part of that. I've been able to be here as a part of it as owning this business, but as a part of Jefferson Healthcare, we're going to be able to grow beyond what I've been able to do as a smaller business, being a part of a bigger organization and working together because Jefferson Healthcare has a really good and important mission for our community and serving our community. I share that mission and I share those goals. And so, being able to have a larger impact on our community and serve in a bigger way really excites me.

Host: It certainly sounds as though it's a win-win for everyone involved. Folks, we trust you are now more familiar with Jefferson Healthcare Discovery Rehabilitation. Amy Irene, congratulations on getting to this point. It sounds like what's to come will be even bigger and better. Keep up all your great work. I hope we can do it again. And thanks so much for being with us.

Amy Irene Lynch, PT: Thank you so much for having me.

Host: Absolutely. And for more information, please visit jeffersonhealthcare.org. If you found this podcast helpful, please do share it on your social media and thanks again for being part of To Your Health from Jefferson Healthcare.