Category Archives: PT Lighthouse

Blood Pressure Monitoring: Which Patients Require Greater Clinical Attention After Exercise?

Which Patients Benefit Most From Post-Exercise Blood Pressure Monitoring? Most physical therapists understand the importance of monitoring blood pressure in patients with known cardiovascular disease. The greater challenge is recognizing when monitoring is equally valuable in patients who don’t immediately appear high risk. While every patient is different, certain populations are more likely to demonstrate […]

Why Resting Blood Pressure Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story: The Importance of Post-Exercise BP Assessment

The Hidden Vital Sign: Why Resting Blood Pressure Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story Most physical therapists understand the value of a resting blood pressure measurement. It’s quick, practical, and helps establish a patient’s baseline cardiovascular status before treatment begins. But if your intervention includes exercise, strengthening, gait training, functional activities, or aerobic conditioning, there is […]

The Unique Nature of Running Injuries — Treating the “Why,” Not Just the Pain

Why Running Injuries Require a Different Clinical Lens Overview If you’ve treated runners for any length of time, you’ve probably felt this: something about these cases doesn’t quite fit the standard orthopedic playbook. The diagnosis might look familiar—Achilles tendinopathy, runner’s knee, shin pain—but the way it develops, behaves, and responds to treatment feels different. That’s […]

AI-Assisted 2D vs. 3D Running Analysis: What’s the Difference—and Why It Matters

AI-Assisted 2D vs. 3D Running Analysis: What’s the Difference—and Why It Matters Between AI-assisted 2D video tools and advanced 3D motion capture systems, clinicians now have access to more data and insight than ever before. But with that expanded capability comes a critical challenge: Understanding the difference between these tools—and knowing what each one is […]

Cracking the Code of Low Back Pain: A Practical Guide to Smarter Categorization For Physical Therapists

How to Categorize Low Back Pain Today, the field is shifting. Rather than treating low back pain as a single entity, clinicians are increasingly using evidence-supported categorization strategies to identify meaningful subgroups—each with distinct clinical patterns, prognoses, and treatment responses. The goal isn’t to force every patient into a rigid box. It’s to improve clarity, […]

Not All Lateral Elbow Pain Is the Same: Classifying Presentations to Guide Treatment

Lateral Elbow Pain: Classifying Presentations to Guide Treatment Lateral elbow pain is one of those conditions that seems straightforward — until it isn’t. Many of us were trained to associate lateral elbow pain almost exclusively with tendinopathy of the common extensor tendon, prescribe a standard loading program, and expect steady improvement. And sometimes, that works. […]