Ellen K
- Research Program Mentor
DPT at Pacific University
Expertise
orthopedic physical therapy, sports, clinical neuroscience, Pilates, Yoga
Bio
I am a clinical physical therapist working in outpatient orthopedics (ie. I work with all ages and types of people to help them rehabilitate from injuries and pain). My undergraduate degree gave me some first hand experience working in labs conducting research, and my DPT degree was strongly focused on evidence based practice. While I don’t participate actively in academic research, I value keeping up to date on physical therapy related research to ensure my clinical practices are relevant and useful. I am personally very interested in pain neuroscience which studies the complex output of pain from the brain and am constantly sharing the mechanisms of pain with my patients, as it can be very empowering and help folks manage pain. I am curious about the placebo effect and mechanisms of touch on our overall health and well-being. I am also a Pilates instructor and participate in Pilates and Yoga myself to maintain my strength and flexibility - I love these practices and they are evidence based health and pain management tools! In my free time I love to take care of my plants, cook and bake, take adventures around town on my bike, and spend time with friends.Project ideas
Impacts of touch on pain
Conduct a literature review to explore how touch or manual therapies might impact nociception (“pain” signals from nerves) and pain. Current pain neuroscience tells us that pain is an output from the brain consisting of many subconscious inputs from our peripheral nervous system, our past experiences, our emotions, etc. In this project you would gain experience finding and analyzing existing scientific literature looking at how manual therapies can impact pain. You would also get better at writing, editing, and build a solid understanding of pain neuroscience in the process.
Ice or heat for an injury or pain?
In this project you will write a scientific review article critically analyzing research that supports use of either ice or heat for injuries or pain. It will allow you to explore indications for ice or heat, as well as whether the research suggests they are helpful or hindering for healing and pain reduction. This will help you gain skills in accessing and assessing current research in this area of treatment, and also build your skills in writing a review paper. This project could easily be turned into a podcast if you wanted to explore that avenue too!