Decatur County Memorial Hospital is expanding their therapy services by offering dry needling therapy and LSVT to patients.
Dry needling (DN) is a skilled manual therapy technique to help improve pain control and reduce muscle tension. Treatments involve a solid but thin needle being inserted into the skin and muscle at and around a trigger point. The purpose is to normalize the muscle and diminish pain. DN has been shown to inactivate the trigger point and normalize the muscle by developing a local twitch response. Having a twitch response also leads to a biochemical change, which helps to reduce pain. This can be an important step in breaking the pain cycle. The literature and research continue to grow in support of the usefulness and effectiveness of integrative dry needling.
During treatment, most patients do not feel the insertion of the needle. Patients may recognize benefits very soon after treatment, but typically it takes several visits for a lasting effect to take place. After treatment, there can be a feeling of soreness in the muscle being treated and in related areas. Typically, the soreness lasts between a few hours to two days, and it is recommended to perform gentle stretches and apply heat or ice after being treated. Dry Needling is part of a rehabilitation program and is frequently used with manual therapy and exercise.
Decatur County Memorial Hospital now offers this dry needling therapy to their rehab patients by certified Dry Needling physical therapists.
Physical therapist, Jordan Rettig, grew up in Greensburg and after recently getting married to Joe they knew they wanted to come back to Decatur County to live and work.
Jordan attended Indiana University for her undergraduate degree and later went on to the University of Saint Augustine in Florida for her doctorate in Physical Therapy. Jordan later completed her dry needling course in Ohio. She began working in the DCMH Physical Therapy Department in September and is excited to offer dry needling to this community.
“I love the fact that our hospital was so open to me doing this new technique. DCMH got me my supplies right away and was very welcoming to this new therapy. Our Rehab Department is awesome in working together as a team and helping each other provide the best care to our patients.”
Physical Therapist, Holly Koors, is a lifelong resident of Greensburg. Holly is married to Craig Koors and they have 2 children, William and Nathan.
Holly attended Purdue University for her undergraduate degree in Athletic Training and then went to IUPUI for her Doctorate Degree in Physical Therapy. She has worked as a physical therapist at Decatur County Memorial Hospital for five years. Holly treats patients with various diagnosis and is specially trained in vestibular therapy, dry needling, and Graston technique.
“I had been considering learning the integrated dry needling technique. I decided to learn dry needling myself after seeing the success Jordan has had in treating her patients.”
DCMH’s Speech Therapy has also added another service called LSVT. Lee Silverman Voice Technique (LSVT) is a treatment for speech disorders associated with Parkinson’s disease. It focuses on increasing vocal loudness and is performed by a speech therapist in sixteen one-hour sessions. The sessions are spread out over a course of four weeks.
LSVT has been the first effective treatment for voice and speech disorders of people with Parkinson’s disease. Although it began as a program for only Parkinson’s disease, it now includes other neurological disorders as well. The overall technique to LSVT is to increase loudness and improve intelligibility of the patient. The program strives to increase the patient’s success with communication by improving their voice and speech function.
Sara Hopf, licensed Speech Therapist at DCMH, offers the LSVT treatment to her patients with Parkinson’s disease and any other neurological disorders. Sara attended Ball State University for her undergrad and graduate degree in Speech Therapy. She then completed her residency in her hometown of Jasper, Indiana.
Sara realized the need for this type of therapy in the community and soon researched on how to become LSVT certified.
“A lot of my Parkinson patients come in and say, “I feel like I am not heard anymore.” It means so much to me that I am helping them get their voice back and improving their overall quality of life.”
To learn more about either of these new services, call the DCMH Rehab department at (812) 663-1119.
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