HUDSON-Think you’ve got to just live with the usual aches and pains that accompany age? Or perhaps you are tolerating an old injury that just won’t go away. You may not have to,
thanks to the in-depth approach to treatment offered at Excel Physical Therapy.
Four years ago, Excel opened its first office in Coxsackie in Greene County, and three
years later they expanded to Hudson in Columbia. And earlier this year they began offering their
services to patients in Mechanicville in Saratoga County. This growing practice is the brainchild
of three physical therapists-Joshua Roylance, Tom Carroll and Alan Palmer-who joined forces to
bring their special brand of physical therapy to patients who are looking for pain relief.
The goal, they say, is to optimize the quality of patient care through tailoring treatment to
the needs of the specific patient. No one-stop shopping here.
“We study the patient by talking with them. We discuss their medical history, and learn
the nature of their complaints,” Mr. Roylance said. “This allows us to not treat by protocol,
because every body is different. What works for one patient may not work for the next. We
treat the individual.”
And, Mr. Roylance added, if it takes spending an hour with a patient to discover the best
approach to treating their pain, then that’s what they are willing to do. “Whatever I have to do to
relieve someone’s pain, that is what I’ll do,” he said.
The therapists also undergo extensive ongoing training in both the latest new techniques,
and in perfecting old techniques that are still effective, even traveling around the country to keep
up-to-date on their training.
“We try to provide not just basic physical therapy, and there are advancements in our
field which we try to keep up with,” Mr. Roylance said. “We do a lot of osteopathic manual
techniques in our treatments. We have learned from osteopathic physicians ways in which we
can better help patients.”
What types of conditions can be treated at Excel Physical Therapy? Just about anything,
including back and shoulder pain, sciatica, carpal tunnel syndrome, TMJ-tempero-mandibular
joint pain, and post-surgical treatments following total knee and hip replacements.
Treatments can come from a range of modalities, like traditional ultrasound, e-stim, or
electrical stimulation, and muscle energy. Physical therapy goes far beyond the exercises some
associate with the field.
“Physical therapy isn’t just exercises and stretching,” Mr. Roylance concluded. “We try
to improve the body’s mechanics, and allow it to heal itself. We use different techniques to let
people live reduced pain or pain-free lives-that is our ultimate goal, and whatever we have to do
to get there, we will do it.”
And here is a little known fact among some patients-when your physician prescribes
physical therapy, you can choose the facility where you would like to be treated. Mr. Roylance
says he encourages patients to act as their own advocate, and realize there is a difference
between physical therapy offices, and in their approaches to your care.
By Melanie Lekocevic
Mid-Hudson Valley Health
Volume 7, Number 2 March-April, 2008
