Ashley Boehm Intro to Exercise Science

10-23-16 Observation Assignment

I had done my Career Exploration Work at Air Physical Therapy in Ellwood City,

Pennsylvania. I have been there a couple times to be treated for whatever injuries might have

occurred that season of sports play, and I enjoyed going into that environment and also all of the

people there, so it was an easy pick as a place to perform my observations. I had observed Ryan

Beer, the Director of Physical Therapy. Since I did not previously have him as one of my

physical therapists, I had thought that it would be a good idea to observe someone else and their

methods of specialization in the field.

Throughout my Career exploration, I had learned a lot about what Air Physical Therapy

focuses on and how it relates to other practices. Air is a smaller physical therapy center, not like

those that would be in the cities or in big communal areas. As a result, the patients that they

worked on would not be as diverse as other big places and communities. When I was there, there

had seemed to be a lot more elders than there was younger patients. The work area has several

offices and rooms on one side of a big room, while the rest of the area was filled with a bunch of

workout equipment. Air is paired with a gym and fitness center, so they do not need as many

machines in the work area, such as treadmills; you can use the ones out in the gym area as well.

I like how it is connected with the gym, because it continually makes the place a more

welcoming and busy place.

The patients, like I had said before, are mainly elders with some high school or young

adult patients. The elders usually seem to have injuries such as back pains or knee problems. The

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younger patients that were in the clinic at the same time had injuries relating to sports. One high

school student was in the clinic being treated for a sprained ankle. The approaches to treating the

injury were as follows: beginning with a STEM machine and heat, stretches to the injury that

they have planned out on a worksheet with pictures, exercise on the injury, and ending with ice.

These professionals plan out the worksheet on stretched that are recommended to your certain

condition or injury. When I had to go for the treatment of my torn quad and sprained ankle, they

had a stretch plan that worked exactly to hit all of the parts of the injury. I like the methods of

how everything goes in this environment.

At first, I did not see myself liking physical therapy the way I do now. I was kind of

critical about going to observe a physical therapist because I did not think this is what I would

want to go into. But, after thinking and the observation, I believe that physical therapy is

definitely a good career for me to go into. I was very interested in going into Occupational

Therapy or to be a personal trainer when I get out of school, but now physical therapy is

definitely in my new top two career choices.