Each year Evidence In Motion comes together to feature our different educational passions and expertise all in one weekend at Align Conference, the premier multidisciplinary rehab conference. Some of your favorite EIM faculty join other world-class practitioners and researchers to learn, connect and inspire. This year’s conference will be held August 28-30 in Dallas, TX.

Focusing on how what’s next in health care, the multidisciplinary, keynote speakers highlight a variety of topics and professions to give you a well-rounded approach to your practice.

• Michele Sterling, PhD, MPhty, BPhty, FACP, (Australia) – Does Targeting Risk-factors Improve Health Outcomes after Motor Vehicle Crash Musculoskeletal Injury?
• Matthew Smuck, MD – Medication for Musculoskeletal Conditions: More Harm than Good?
• Jan Dommerholt, PT, DPT – What’s Next in Exercise: External vs. Internal Focus Exercise
• Larry Benz, DPT, OCS, MBA – What’s Next for the Future of Health Care and Rehabilitation?
• Stephen Schmidt, PT, MPhysio, OCS, FAAOMPT – What’s Next in the World of Pain?
• Paul Mintken, PT, DPT, OCS, FAAOMPT – The Patient and their Expectations

Breakout sessions give you the opportunity to create your own schedule by choosing the sessions you want to attend. You will have four different opportunities to attend each of the breakout sessions led by multidisciplinary clinicians and researchers.

Breakout Sessions

• Next NEXT Level Spinal Manipulation
  • This lab-based session will empower the participant to become confident in using select thoracic manual therapy techniques for treating those with both acute and persistent pain.

• ACL Rehab: The Alpha & Omega
  • Considering the alarming incidence of ACL tears, coupled with abysmal return to sport and re-injury rates following ACL reconstruction, something needs to change!  This dangerous trajectory can be shifted by elevating our standard of care at both the beginning and end of rehab. Specifically, a model for personalized blood flow restriction therapy will be taught for early rehab.  We will then look at a comprehensive return to sport testing algorithm that factors in both intrinsic and extrinsic risk factors. 

• The Future is 20/20: Moving with GMI
  • One strategy used in normalizing cortical maps is moving with graded motor imagery (GMI), including normalizing laterality, motor imagery, mirror therapy, sensory discrimination, sensory integration and more. The growing evidence shows the GMI program as a whole or in part can be used clinically to help desensitize a hypersensitive nervous system. This lab session will  provide a clear 20/20 vision of how brief GMI assessments and interventions can be readily applied in real-life clinics. 

• Activating the HEALTH in Health Care: A Taste of Lifestyle Medicine
  • It is well documented that we are facing a global epidemic of chronic disease onset and progression. These diseases are often directly associated with poor patterns of daily behavior such as sedentary lifestyle, improper nutrition, excess stress and poor sleep patterns. In the breakout sessions, you will get a “taste of” Lifestyle Medicine components including screening tools, helping your client identify what and how ready they are to make a change, sleep and movement therapy and integrated mindfulness. 

• No Needles, No Problems: Creative Techniques for Addressing Neuromyofascial Pain
  • Dry Needling has become a mainstream intervention that is incredibly efficient and effective for treating complaints associated with the neuromusculoskeletal system.  But it is not for everyone, and it is not a stand-alone technique. In this session we will explore creative alternative and/or adjunctive, soft tissue assessment and treatment techniques to dry needling.  

• When Your Patient Needs a Village: Multidisciplinary Care for the Complex Patient
  • With all the layers that make up the experience of complex chronic pain, sometimes our patients need a village. In this session, you will get to interact with a myriad of professionals on a personal level while unpacking the case of a patient with complex, chronic pelvic pain affecting many aspects of life.  Following a short lecture to introduce the case, students will form small groups and move from one team member to the next, every 15-20 minutes. Our “village” consists of a primary care / pain specialist MD, an OBGYN, an OT, a clinical psychologist, and three physical therapists, representing specialist training in pain science, pelvic health and functional dry needling.

The conference brings together physical therapists, occupational therapists, physical therapist assistants, DPT students, and more health care professionals in one place to learn with and from one another. Join us and discover what’s next for you! 

Learn more and register at alignconference.com. Take advantage of early bird rates until June 30, 2020.