Physical Therapy and Covid-19
by Dr. Mathew Thomas, PT, DPT, Cert DN, ATC, CEAS III
What a challenging time our world faces as COVID-19 has hovered over us like a dark cloud through the past few weeks. I have seen routines change not only in my personal life, but also with everyone at work and for countless Americans. The challenging question remains what now? I find myself asking new questions daily in response to confrontations that seem to come up every week.
As a company we have not only addressed our own safe practices and strategies, but also how we can be a helpful neighbor to our surrounding communities and companies we serve. I need not look further than what our company name means: Sozo. In the greek, Sozo means to serve, to protect, to heal, and to love. In this season of pandemic, we look at the meaning of Sozo to see how we react and treat our patients to embody our name.
#1 To Serve: We have remained open as essential services, and continue to see patients in our community by taking proper precautions with our treatment. We have encouraged telemed services for those who are at highest risk and our industrial team has begun helping our community with temperature checks for their employees as we navigate through ever-changing state requirements.
#2 To Protect: We have taken extra precautions by cleaning our equipment using proper hospital grade cleaning agents, and our staff using gloves and masks with our patients. We are also taking temperature checks of our patients to assess their health and avoid contact with those who pose higher risk.
#3 To Heal: We understand part of pain management is being proactive with simple and effective strategies that our patients can use to manage your pain at home. We have used telemed services for many years but during this season it is imperative that if you are unable to come into a local office you can take advantage of our telemed service.
Our one call telemed service is hipaa compliant, safe and secure. By calling (888) 651-3957 we will put you in touch with a Doctor of Physical Therapy, and you will be able to speak via phone and video if possible.
#4 To Love: Our staff and family have made reusable masks which are available at our Chandler office. If you need a mask please come by and get one. We are available to check in our patients, make grocery runs, and help with triage with our local community for proper management of signs and symptoms of Covid-19.
We want to be the leader in our industry and not act out of fear but be a shining light for safe and ethical practice protecting our patients and ourselves. I am so proud of our staff who have worked to provide all the community based PT-services.
