Patrick Donovan, Author at Heather Lane Physical Therapy

24Aug 2022 by Patrick Donovan

Why Strong Bones Matter

Health content

Hi everyone, Dr. Donovan here. Really excited to share what we have today on why bones matter. It's something I educate people a lot on in the clinic; how their osteoporosis profile relates to what they can do, and what they maybe shouldn't do. All of these include lifestyle modifications and different ways of moving your spine and hips to help protect them over time. Most importantly, they lower your fall risk. Lowering your fall risk will mitigate any risk of acute fracture. When we discuss osteoporosis, we're talking about bone mineral density and osteopenia. It is most common in older adults and mainly postmenopausal women, but that doesn't mean you should stop caring about your bones even if you don't have a degenerative bone disease; it's something to maintain…

19Jul 2022 by Patrick Donovan

What One-Legged Standing Can Tell About Fracture Risk

Health content

The Purpose of This Test What one-legged standing can tell you is your fracture risk. We always hear how balance becomes an issue as we age, but at what point do we need to take balance training? You can watch the above video for a quick and dirty test that you can perform at home. From this one-legged standing test we can learn how to decrease the risk for: Future fracture, Osteoporosis complications, and Hip fractures In older adults. This demographic has the most far-reaching consequences in terms of disability-reduced quality of life and increased mortality. I know it all seems like bad news, but I've got some good news coming your way. Hip Fractures How do hip fractures occur to anyone from falls, so the more we can do…

22Jun 2022 by Patrick Donovan

Finding The Right Quad Strengthening Exercise

Health content

Today, we're going to find the right quad strengthening exercise for you. We want you to have the most precise leg strengthening variation that works for your strengthening routine. Let's take us through some real-life examples you've noticed in the past few years: You can only garden two hours before you need a break You can't quite keep up with your younger friend on a hike. You're in the functional category of aging, and you're ready to increase your strength. So you performed the 30-second sit-to-stand test from the last video and you scored 11 reps that place you securely in the functional category of aging fitness. So why not make a goal of 15 reps to place you in the fun category? So now that you've measured your quad…

31May 2022 by Patrick Donovan

Baseline Measures of Health | Heather Lane PT – Physical Therapist in Denver, CO

Health content

What's your baseline activity level? Are you getting 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity per week? How about the two days of multiple segment strength training? A quarter of adults and eight percent of older adults achieve the recommended dose of exercise per week. Well, if not, you're not alone. Only a quarter of adults and eight percent of older adults achieve the recommended dose of exercise per week. Today we are going to hone in not just on overall fitness or activity level, but the importance of baseline measures. We're going to look at one test: the 30-second sit-to-stand test. Sit to Stand Test This test captures important information on: Lower body strength, Static balance, Quad endurance, Spinal posture, Hip strength, And joint motion. This test is commonly used…

18May 2022 by Patrick Donovan

Building Physical Resilience Part 2

Health content

"Life is not about how fast you run, or how high you climb, but how well you bounce back." - Vivian Komori I've always referred to this when talking to our patients. We want to be able to bounce right back to where we started when we have a negative stressor. These negative events and setbacks in our life are inevitable, but we want to pop back up. I encourage you all to think differently ahead of your potential next setback. With aging, these setbacks get even harder to bounce back from. When people with less resiliency have a setback, they don't quite bounce back right to where they started. Whether they're in the hospital for a night, or something negative happened emotionally in their lives, it's hard to bounce back.…

25Apr 2022 by Patrick Donovan

How to Build Physical Resilience

Health content

Physical resilience is our ability to bounce back following a negative health stressor. Whether it's stress-related or a physical injury, building a reservoir of resilience allows room for setbacks in life. Health stressors come in many different shapes and sizes. They could be the emotional toll of taking care of your spouse, they could be an acute injury or even cancer treatment. These setbacks are unavoidable and often unpredictable. So how do we physically bounce back from events we can't even prepare for? We become a rubber band. The strongest most, flexible rubber band we can. A rubber band encapsulates our collective strength flexibility endurance and overall fitness the more we can pull our bodies safely in each direction, the less likely we are to encounter a pulled hamstring, back…

18Apr 2022 by Patrick Donovan

Gait Speed as the Sixth Vital Sign

ankle, foot, Health content

Hello everyone Dr. Donovan here and today, we will be talking about travel speed as the sixth vital sign. The 5 commonly accepted vital signs are: Blood pressure, Heart rate, Oxygen saturation, Respiration, And temperature. One of the biggest things I have observed in my work is that any adult's walking or hiking behaviors are a marker of their health. You can also find greater control over your mental health and environmental control by improving your travel speed, and measuring the speed of movement according to the predicted health condition. There is something to be gained by improving your gait speed for everyone. For example, if you have a single gait speed, which is another name for walking speed, you can potentially increase it for an overall positive impact. There…

04Apr 2022 by Patrick Donovan

The Lifespan of Health

Health content, Prevention

We all have been raised by hearing the most famous proverb, "Health is Wealth". This proverb indicates that nothing is more important than good health, but as we grow up, a significant deterioration can be noticed in our health. The branch of physical health and sciences did amazing wonders in the sciences and paved new ways for people to enjoy a long healthy life as much as possible. Physical therapy is also a part of this phenomenon that is leading wonders to people's lives. This branch of wonders constitutes therapists who provide services to individuals and make efforts to restore, develop and maintain the utmost movement and functional ability for the whole Span of life as the active movement is an integral component of good health. Physical Therapy brings an…

30Sep 2019 by Patrick Donovan

6 Physical Therapy Myths during National PT Month

Health content

October is National Physical Therapy month, a time when physical therapists like Dr. Patrick Donovan of Denver not only celebrate their profession, but also educate others about the role physical therapy plays in improving the health and vitality of their patients … and of health care in general. While a physical therapist’s roles are both broad and diverse, Dr. Donovan says several misconceptions still exist about what physical therapy is, what it isn’t, and the various ways it can help people improve the health and lives of people at all stages in life. “When a lot of people think about physical therapy, they think rehabilitation. But that’s just part of what we do,” said Dr. Donovan, owner of Heather Lane Physical Therapy in Denver. “Physical therapists can improve the lives of people of all ages dealing with several common ailments, and even people with no ailments…

04Sep 2019 by Patrick Donovan

Save the RICE for First-Aid, Not Healing & Recovery

Health content

For decades, the standard and recommended response to an injured muscle, tendon or ligament was to “apply RICE,” an acronym that stands for a protocol of rest, ice, compression and elevation. Yet these days, according to Denver physical therapist Patrick Donovan, the application of RICE as a treatment for these sports-type soft-tissue injuries isn’t 100 percent supported by science. “Multiple studies have come out over the years that question the wisdom behind our reliance of RICE as a treatment for injuries, specifically as it relates to rest and the application of ice to the injured area,” said Donovan, owner of Heather Lane Physical Therapy in Denver. “Because of this, the role of RICE has changed in recent years.” RICE was coined in 1978 by Gabe Mirkin M.D., a legendary sports physician who introduced the procedure as author of “The Sports Medicine Book.”…