Not initially. In New York State, physical therapists are direct access health care professionals. An individual can receive physical therapy for 10 sessions or 30 days without a physician’s referral, whichever comes first.

Most musculoskeletal injuries can be treated conservatively with physical therapy. When a surgical procedure is required, physical therapy is usually essential for full rehabilitation. For a full list of conditions Dr. Caronia treats, check out the Conditions Treated page.

While facilitating recovery from an injury is what people often think of as a physical therapist’s primary role, injury prevention is an equally important service a PT can provide. This is especially key when introducing a new activity or exercise routine into your life. Dr. Caronia has begun the Inertia Program, which consists of a full musculoskeletal and neuromuscular assessment and discussion of supplemental corrective exercises. This is designed to keep you active in your fitness routine without any setbacks and enhance performance by encouraging efficiency, balance, and symmetry while you’re doing what you love to do!

In short, manual therapy is the use of skilled, specific hands-on techniques to affect the physiology of tissues within the body in order to enhance movement and improve function. As a Certified Orthopedic Manual Therapist, Dr. Caronia uses manual therapy in nearly all of his treatments as part of a multi-modal approach; manual therapy is rarely, if ever, a stand-alone treatment. It provides a window of opportunity to create changes in movement when combined with exercise and neuromuscular re-education.

Neuromuscular re-education is the use of therapeutic techniques for the purpose of improving impaired movement, balance, coordination, decreased kinesthetic sense, and proprioception. Dr. Caronia can assess impaired movement patterns and discern which muscles are not active enough, which are hyperactive, and correct the imbalances accordingly. This often includes modulating tissues with manual therapy, activating muscles in isolation, and finally integrating these changes into efficient movement patterns.