Top 5 MedBridge Courses for Home-Visit Clinicians

By Alex Germano, PT, DPT

Physical Therapist

Top 5 MedBridge Courses for Home-Visit Clinicians

As a clinician with FOX Rehabilitation, having access to MedBridge can be overwhelming. There are hundreds of general continuing education courses, certification prep courses for specialization exams, and live webinars right at your fingertips.

Below you will find five courses that can help elevate your clinician practice. Not only do they provide high levels of value for the time they take to complete, but they are highly clinically applicable. After just a few short hours you will have plenty of new techniques to apply to your caseload the next day.

Happy watching (and learning)!

5 Best MedBridge Courses for Physical Therapists Treating in the Home

1. Management of Vestibular-Related Dizziness in Geriatrics

by Jeff Walters PT, DPT, NCS

Clinicians who work with older adults should have a keen eye for vestibular-related dizziness as this type of dizziness is very underdiagnosed. Many of our patients are probably suffering from some type of vestibular impairment that we could be targeting better. I enjoyed that this course went through age-related vestibular changes to set the stage for what changes are normal and what changes are not.

There are many videos of real-time nystagmus in this series that can sharpen your skills in identifying directionality, latency, and duration. This will greatly improve your ability to diagnose vestibular conditions. Repositioning maneuvers for benign paroxysmal positional vertigo can also be found in this webinar, but you may need to get creative on how to apply those to the home setting.

2. Practical Applications for Common Gait Deviations in the Neurological Population

by J.J. Mowder-Tinney, PT, Ph.D., NCS, C/NDT, CSRS, CEEAA

Okay, J.J. Mowder-Tinney is my favorite instructor on MedBridge hands down. She is the queen of applicability. Every course of hers I take gives me at least five new techniques to use the very next day. I would definitely recommend looking into all of her courses. She also does live webinars quite frequently, so watch out for those!

In this course, you will learn all about normal and abnormal gait. My favorite part about the course is her evaluation technique section in which she really dives into the why behind gait deviations. I see a lot of therapists cueing “okay, take a bigger step” when they see small steps -without great justification. Could this small step be due to poor single leg stance ability, lack of strength or power development, a neurological disease, or fear? Going back to basics and figuring out the why provides a much more targeted and successful gait intervention.

J.J. also just held a live webinar about reactive balance with tons of amazing exercises, so look out for that one to be loaded onto MedBridge soon!

3. Fundamentals of Therapeutic Exercise Part Two

by Kay Wing, PT, DPT, NCS

This course is a two-part series that dives into theories and strategies behind enhancing therapeutic exercise interventions for patients with neurological impairments. The first course sets the stage with theories behind normal movement, patterns of movement, and movement analysis. Part two is the meat and potatoes. This is where I learned how important my body position, manual contacts, and use of reflexes could be to my therapeutic exercises.

After taking this course, you will be much more critical about where you place your hands on a patient or where you stand. It will help you think about the facilitative or inhibitory effects of that placement. This course also goes on to discuss ways to use stretch to facilitate movement, ways to layer in visual cues, and how to strengthen verbal cueing. If you are looking to develop stronger neuromuscular re-education skills then this is the course for you.

Kay is also a great educator who has a variety of other courses on MedBridge. Definitely look into her Interventions for Neurological Diagnoses but understand the applicability to home settings may be difficult since their clinic uses a lot of assistance from students and over-ground harnesses.

4. Strength Training for Older Adults Part 1: Lower Body Major Lifts

by Christina Prevett, MScPT, CSCS, Ph.D. (c)

If you feel like you could up your strength training game, this is the course you want to take. Christina does an amazing job of breaking down both the squat and deadlift in this webinar. She goes through each movement and discusses various scaling options to meet your patients at their current skill level.

She also has an upper-body course in which she teaches the push-up, the overhead press, and barbell row. If you aren’t already doing these exercises in your own workout programs (wink, wink!) this course will help to develop appropriate scaling options, learn important cues, and challenge loading to appropriate levels.

5. Bladder Control Evaluation and Treatment: Urinary Urgency and Incontinence

by Cindy Neville, PT, DPT, WCS

I have to admit this course was definitely out of my comfort zone but I learned a ton! Incontinence issues are a major reason why people transition from home to assisted living facilities. This is an area that both physical and occupational therapists have a role in improving. I wasn’t very confident in my ability to assess urge incontinence, and this course made it easy to implement strategies right away. There is great information about bladder diaries and how to effectively use them, ways to improve fluid management, and how to start prescribing behavioral interventions to teach your patients.

The course ends with a case study of a real patient. During this assessment and treatment, Cindy helps to tie in the course goals and objectives and provides applicable treatment strategies.

I may not be the main therapist treating incontinence if occupational therapy is on board, but this course helped me understand how I can continue to supplement the patient’s occupational therapy goals from a physical therapy perspective.

Tips for Choosing a MedBridge Course

With the world of MedBridge waiting, here is a quick list of ways to scout out the right course that will provide you the most value and strengthen your clinical excellence!

• Try something different! If a topic seems out of your comfort zone, just click and start listening. Learning more about what you don’t know will make you a better therapist.
• Create a MedBridge club. Get a few therapists together and choose a few different courses to complete together throughout the year. You may find new courses this way and get more out of the course by discussing them with friends.
• Read the course descriptions. Doing so sounds obvious, but this can really help guide you to see if the course will be appropriate for yourself and the setting in which you currently work. Evaluate the learning objectives to see if this course is what you really need!