Recently, Hannah Schultz, PTA at OSR, interviewed Meredith Butulis, DPT at OSR on what the new letters behind her name mean.
Question: What is a CIMT?
Answer: CIMT stands for Certified Integrated Manual Therapist. It is an advanced certification that Physical Therapists can earn.
Question: Does this mean that you perform manual therapy, like massage, on all of your patients?
Answer: No. I evaluate and treat each patient individually. The certification really helps a therapist develop a very high level of understanding on how to use taping, exercise, and muscle energy techniques all together to achieve a result. Most of my interventions involve the patient being very active.
Question: How does a Physical Therapist earn this certification?
Answer: A Physical Therapist attends 140 hours of specialized classroom work, and then practices these techniques over a course of at least 3 years. After this, the therapist is eligible to attend a 4 day written, oral, and practical exam. Once all of these exams are passed at 80% or better, one earns the title of CIMT.
Question: How does this affect the way that you treat patients?
Answer: Because of this training, I view each injury in terms of how it affects the entire body more than I did previously. For example, if you have an ankle injury, I may also evaluate and select appropriate interventions for your hip and knee as part of your treatment plan.
Question: What is one of the most interesting things you learned during your training?
Answer: I learned the specifics of how the body is really “all connected.” For example, there are times that I need to treat pelvis alignment in order to successfully strength parts of a shoulder. There are very specific tests and signs I look for to understand which situations this applies in.
