Neuroscience
What is neuroscience?
Neuroscience is all about the brain, spinal cord, the nerves that originate from the brain and spinal cord, and how all of those interact with all of the other parts of the body. It’s a complicated topic because it’s such a sensitive area where a small change can have a huge impact, which means these areas can’t be experimented with too much. Also, the physical structures are not clear because they all have similar colors and textures and they overlap a lot. You can tell your finger from your palm or your different muscles from each other even though they’re right next to each other, but you can’t really look and see where the section of brain that controls shoulder movement ends and the part that controls arm movement begins. And there’s just as much variety inside people that we can’t see as there is outside people that we can see.
Neuro, neuro, neuro! Study, study, study!
Why do PTs need to know neuroscience?
There are neuro specialists in the PT field and they have a pretty clear connection to neuroscience. Neuro specialists are helping people either recover from a neurological injury like a stroke or concussion or they’re helping people improve or maintain their ability to do the things they want to do while living with conditions like multiple sclerosis or Parkinson’s Disease.
For the rest of physical therapists, part of their expertise as movement experts is being able to determine whether or not exercise is safe at that moment for their patient. A moderate level of neuro education is necessary so they can recognize if someone they’re treating is having a neurological emergency or urgent issue. This involves recognizing which signs and symptoms occur when certain parts of the nervous system are impacted, which signs and symptoms show up as a group in particular conditions, and how movement may impact the rest of your body if these signs and symptoms are present. As physical therapists, they don’t have the tools or authority to say “Yes, you definitely have this neurological condition,” but they have the knowledge to know what’s safe or not safe for incorporating into a treatment plan.
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