Our guest speaker this evening was Sarah Ferguson. Sarah is a Physical Therapist in Holly Springs and owner of Village Physical Therapy. Readers of Suburban Living voted Village Physical Therapy as the Top Physical Therapy practice in Holly Springs since 2004.
There were two main topics for this evening: Access to Physical Therapy and Education about Balance.
People often ask her if a referral is needed to get Physical Therapy. The answer is that it depends on your insurance. If you have Medicare, Medicare, or TriCare you will need a referral. Often times it is simply a matter of asking for one from your primary care provider. If you have third party medical insurance a referral is generally not necessary. However, it is always best to check with your insurance company to be sure to avoid any unexpected surprises.
For many people balance can be challenging. There are three components to how we keep our balance. These are the vestibular system, vision, and somatosensory feedback. The vestibular system is how your brain receives signals from your inner ear. The vision component adds the input from your eyes as visual references to the horizon, for example. Finally, the somatosensory component is how your brain processes what you feel from your feet. Our brains take all three of these as inputs to help us remain upright and maintain balance. Injuries to one or more of these systems can cause a person to have difficulty walking or balancing. For example, if a person goes blind or loses feeling in their feet due to complications from diabetes.
Sarah showed us some examples of different techniques used to help people learn to rely on the remaining systems in cases like these to enable them to balance better and walk more safely. She also talked about things you can do at home to practice but highly recommended you find something to hold so you don’t fall!
A few of our members have had to deal with such issues or had family members who have dealt with this issue so there were some good questions and conversation after the presentation.