Posts by Lisa Mangino

PT, DPT, PCS, C/NDT, PRC

They say the third time is a charm! I think we’ve been planning to take the “old Peds course” and now the new, remastered “Human Evolution” course to Alpine PT in Seattle WA three times, and in October, we finally did it, barring surgery and COVID! From my perspective, it was well worth the wait. Christopher Murhpy, Jeremiah Ferguson, Eli Zygmuntowicz, and Eva Bilo were the most gracious hosts and hostess. It was so great to have met you after hearing so many good things about you and your clinic.

We took a journey through the development of a human, highlighting critical sensory motor milestones, reviewed the literature supporting why these human developmental principles are important and connected it all with a description and application of 7 specific developmental processes. With over 100 videos of clinicial application through the lifespan, we were “in the clinic” with 8 patient cases for all of Day #2, from 15 months old to 70 years old.

We had an important conversation about the overwhelming benefits of crawling on hands and knees, and how important this skill is to painfree, grounded, postural development and walking as we age. This skill (at any age, really) brings sensory attention to all of our bases of support (right and left, front and back), helps to use and to integrate primitive tonic neck reflexes, provides a sense of upper extremity self-referencing on the maturation of cephalic-caudal independence, allows us to feel a grounded sense of gravtiy in a primitive form of forward locomotor movement, AND to explore our worlds from a new visual persepctive for cognitive processing!  And that’s only one of the 10 milestones we recognized.

A couple of the attendees came up to me and said, “As you were talking, I was writing patients names down because this course applies to so many of them”. We might not be crawling for locomotion as adults, but as we are cleaning out a bottom cabinet, gardening on hands and knees, pushing a grocery cart in the grocery store, rolling over in bed, lowering ourselves to play with our pets or children, or walking upstairs (or downstairs backwards – WHAT?), we are using the skills that were hopefully laid down in the developmental years. If these skills were not wired developmentally, or if an injury or insult changed that developmental fortification, there’s a good chance one might be pursuing PT, which is why your patients might be in your clinic. This course was created to help us all better understand these cross-referenced connections for better patient outcomes.

I hope to see you in one of 2 live stream offerings in January or September of 2024, or maybe I’ll get to shake your hand in person in Malvern PA in April. Thanks again to the fine folks at Alpine PT, and to everyone who attended, nodded, questioned, and participated. Your presence was enriching to me and to the group’s learning. I appreciate you all!

Posted November 30, 2023 at 9:41PM
Categories: Courses

The evolution of the human being from an infant to an upright, alternating adult is a complicated and multifaceted, sequential, unstable, patterned process, requiring stages, challenges, and self-actualization for optimization.

From infants learning to roll, to toddlers walking behind a push toy, to a competent upright human walking down the stairs backwards (yes, backwards), we presented a 10-component, cumulative Postural Restoration Developmental Sensory Motor Sequence supported by 9 carefully chosen and explained Sensory Integration Principles that support attention to 7 Postural Restoration Developmental Processes. Incorporation of sensory awareness of these processes into the treatment of human beings, fortifies the sensorimotor outcomes that every parent, clinician, and human hopes to experience.

In front of an engaged audience of 7 in-person and a whopping 60 faces on the live stream, comprised of 17 PRC’s and 3 PRT’s, PT’s, ATC’s, personal trainers, massage therapists, an osteopath, an acupuncturist, a health coach, a yoga instructor, lots of familiar faces as well as welcomed new ones, from 9 different countries (Taiwan, Germany, Singapore, Ireland, Japan, France, Poland, Canada, and China), Ron Hruska and I presented the second offering of the Human Evolution course and the first live stream. We enjoyed the enlightening discussions fueled by insightful questions from the audience and I think it’s fair to say we ALL came away from the weekend with a little more to think about in our attempt to better understand the complexities of the developing human being.

‘Understanding how underlying developmental processing of information contributes to the development of sensory motor sequencing and the ‘sense of self’, will enable the caregiver to optimize the use of movement instabilities, without developing overdependence on the respiration or primitive adaptive motor ‘patterning’ for stability’ at any age.

Personally, I’d like to sincerely thank Ron Hruska for his gracious mentoring and for trusting me to deliver this complex and valuable information. (I could go on and on…) Further, Jen Platt was instrumental in assisting with content organization, publication, and is a technological whiz for ensuring we were on the same page, slide, and that the almost 100 videos came through clearly. RJ and Hannah were spectacular from behind the scenes and nothing short of enthusiastically supportive! THANK YOU!

Thanks to all of the attendees for your attention, contributions, thoughts, smiles and ‘thumbs up’ from zoom land. It sure was an honor, a timely opportunity and a very fulfilling experience to be with you all!

Until we meet or meet again….

Lisa

Posted January 24, 2023 at 5:39PM
Categories: Clinicians Courses Science

2021 Summer Semester Class in Review

What an honor to be invited to teach PRI for a 6-week summer selective course at High Point University this past May-June to PT students in their third year!  A big “Thank You!” to the staff at HPU and especially to Dr. Dora Gosselin, PT, DPT, PCS, C/NDT, former student, and colleague of mine for the invitation!  Seventeen eager students chose this selective and did a fantastic job receiving the science. They asked thoughtful questions and provided helpful feedback at the course end.

In six 4-hour classes, we were able to get through the concepts of Asymmetrical Human Design, Respiratory Zone of Apposition (ZOA), Neutrality, Right-Sided Dominance, Alternation, Respiration, Lateralization, and an Introduction to Scoliosis. We tackled 9 PRI tests and 15 non-manual techniques in 8 hours of lab.  We ended with 2 assignments to give them an opportunity to explore and apply the science of PRI.  They dove into the literature to see if they could find, review, and then present an article that compared the right side to the left side of the human body in any area of PT.  Then, they applied their new knowledge by performing 3 PRI tests and 3 non-manual techniques followed by PRI re-testing to identify changes to a human body of their choice.  These two projects/class presentations served to be learning experiences from which we all benefitted.

I was very lucky and grateful to have the incomparable Dr. Jennifer Smart as a lab TA with me on non-manual technique day!  The students’ learning experience was audibly enriched by her presence! Thank you, Jen!

Finally, thank you to Ron Hruska and Jen Platt, founder, and executive director, respectively, and the Board of Directors of the Institute for allowing me to use PRI materials for teaching, for their generous support, as well as for creating the science!

We are hopeful to be able to teach more students again next year!  Thanks again, Dr. Gosselin and staff, for welcoming me into your state-of-the-art technology classroom fully equipped with treatment tables and anything else an instructor could want!  What an awesome experience!

Posted July 29, 2021 at 8:24PM
Categories: Science

What a fun experience it was to be able to connect with the 37 participants from last month’s live stream pediatrics course! With the new format, we were able to reach attendees in Japan, Canada, Poland, and India! James and I also brought the PRI science to 6 new (“VIP”) clinicians! Further, the audience was made up of yoga instructors, OT’s, personal trainers, and of course, PT’s. The participants seemed to enjoy the many videos of PRI treatment with children of all ages and all skill development levels. We were even able to do some demonstrations with kids! A special shout out to Jen Platt, Nancy Hammond, Libby Lostetter, and anyone else who let us use your children for a spotlighted kid demo! And the adult attendees who participated in demonstrations were also greatly appreciated as it brought a nice richness to the learning experience.

I’ve since been in touch with some of the attendees to see what they thought about the new format and a common comment is how nice it is to have the recording of the class for 10 days following the weekend to go back and review and refresh! It worked out so well, we are planning another Live Stream for August 28-29, 2021 with hopefully a couple in person courses as well. Check out the schedule, and tell your friends! Lastly, huge shout out to co-presenter, James Anderson, producer, RJ Hruska, as well as to Hannah Hankins and Jen Platt for all of the scheduling, manual edits and production, technical help and behind the scenes planning that putting a course like this together requires! And last but not least, thanks to Ron Hruska for the genius foundation! Hope to see you in 2021!

Ron Hruska and I attended the 2018 International Association of Orofacial Myologists (IAOM) this weekend in Charlotte, NC.  It was an informative conference attended by Speech Language Pathologists (SLP),  Registered Dental Hygienists (RDH), Dentists and one other PT. The speakers included physicians (MD and DO), dentists, and SLP’s who spoke about topics including but not limited to: connecting the mouth to the rest of the body, guiding orofacial development in children, techniques for speaking and feeding in children with special needs, techniques for addressing tethered oral tissue (TOT; tongue and lip ties), wound management from TOT surgery, the tongues effect on the body, genetic disorders, and publication trends and evidence in Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy literature.

Ron spoke on Orofacial Myologic Disorders (OMD) Relationship to Postural Asymmetry. It was a well – received lecture where Ron focused on respecting the neck, asymmetry, anatomy, forward head posture and the importance of recognizing sense. He performed a test/ retest demonstration of how a PRI technique results in neutrality. They were amazed to say the least!

Following this lecture Ron and I received many questions from the course attendees about the value of physical therapy. We tried hard to explain to them that their local PT without PRI experience may not be able to address their patient’s issues as demonstrated by Ron in the lecture. It is likely these course attendees (SLP’s and RDH’s) will be contacting you from the PRI website as a clinician to help them treat their patients.  Understand that they believe they are the ones who should be treating the tongue and mouth directly. It will be a nice opportunity for PRC’s to help guide these practitioner’s understanding how the position of the neck and body, and the underlying asymmetry, we all appreciate, can have a significant influence on their treatment, approach and results when addressing oral myology pathology and disorders.  We both came away with a high degree of respect and appreciation for these interactive and collaborative, multi-disciplinarians.

Posted October 8, 2018 at 9:46PM

Products

CD Bundles
Non-manual Techniques
Manual Techniques DVD
Manual Techniques
Illustrations
PRIVY
PRI Video for You