Physical Therapist
Lauren Mothot, DPT > Miami Valley Hospital
By KEN MOSIER
For What2Be
A back flip during a gymnastics floor exercise introduced Lauren Mathot to the world of physical therapy. The then-high school junior landed wrong while performing for Magnificat High School.
“I injured myself fairly bad and I had to have reconstruction on my ankle,” she said. “So I was in physical therapy myself for about three months trying to (rehabilitate) and go back for my final year of gymnastics.
“I loved my therapist — he did a great job with me and, the more I was there, the more I thought, ‘Hey, I could do this.’”
Mathot enrolled at the University of Dayton and took her bachelor’s degree is Sports Science and Education. She then went straight to Ohio University and received her Doctor of Physical Therapy degree.
“You can bypass the master’s (degree) and go straight to the doctorate. It is a three-year program,” she said.
Mathot said one can become a physical therapist with either a master’s or a doctorate. She said that may change in the future.
“There is a movement toward the doctorate, and the American Physical Therapy Association is hoping that all schools are going to move toward the doctorate by 2020.”
In a hospital setting, most physical therapists work day shift only — albeit seven days a week.
“We usually do eight to five or something along those lines. Usually by dinner time, most people aren’t wanting to get out of bed and do things,” she said. “And that is the time when visitors come in. We do do treatments and evaluations on weekends.”
Physical therapists are often aided by Physical Therapist Assistants, which is an associate degree.
“PTAs work with the physical therapists and kind of carry out the plan of care that we set for the patients,” she explained.
Mathot goes to patients’ rooms in her position. The variety of patient ailments is just about anything found in the hospital.
“We have a large spectrum of patients. You can get everything from orthopedic to patients that came in from traumas to patients who came in from a stroke or pneumonia. Some have had surgeries or complications from surgeries. So you have some patients very short term and some for a very longer term,” she said. “It is a large variety and a large age group.”
The PTs also work with cardiac and respiratory patients and even maternity patients.
Evaluating the patient in his/her room is one thing that Mathot does.
“We check out how their mobility is in terms of how they are doing getting out of bed and are they able to stand or walk,” she said. “In the room we do treatments, have them do the exercises in bed or at the side of the bed.”
She said they will also do training of the patients for such devices as wheelchairs or walkers and they work with the doctors and other caregivers on discharge plans for the patients.
Other therapists can be found in the rehabilitation room working on various exercise equipment.
“The difference is that they do a more intensive therapy and it is very regimented. It is intended for when the patients are done here they will be going home,” she explained.
A wide variety of jobs exists in the physical therapy arena outside of hospitals.
“You have sports medicine, brain-injury clinics, extended-care facilities — there are just so many different places you can work,” Mathod said. “The demand (for physical therapists) is very great.”
