Post-Rehab Conditioning

As the fitness and health care industries continue to change, fitness professionals find themselves working with more clients that have musculoskeletal, neurologic and cardiovascular conditions. Many of these clients will be referred by their physician, chiropractor or physical therapist for post-rehab conditioning.

What is Post-Rehab Conditioning?

Post rehab is the development and implementation of fitness programming for clients referred from medical services. Post rehab programs provide the following services:

• Perform safe and effective fitness assessments on clients with medical disorders without causing exacerbation of the condition.
• Perform a 12-point musculoskeletal screening on a medical exercise/post rehab client.
• Understand the related anatomy, pathology and biomechanics of common medical conditions.
• Understand how common medical conditions respond to exercise.
• Develop safe and effective conditioning programs for clients with musculoskeletal, neurological, cardiovascular and metabolic disorders.
• Apply safe and effective medical exercise techniques for the upper and lower extremity and spine.
• Communicate effectively with medical professionals and insurance carriers.
• Identify the red flags and warning signs that indicate the client is in need of evaluation or treatment from a licensed medical professional.
• Understand the role and scope of practice for the medical exercise professional when working with post rehab and medical exercise clients.
• Develop an effective marketing program to establish relationships with medical professionals in the local community.
• Perform a functional assessment on the post rehab client to determine the client’s functional abilities as a means of evaluating the effectiveness of the post rehab program
• Document both assessment and training sessions using standardized medical exercise administrative forms and methods.

Post rehab programs are designed specifically for each individual based on their unique condition. The goal of the post rehab conditioning program is to restore the client to their previous level of function.

A post rehab conditioning specialist keeps detailed records of each client’s program, while providing the referring health care professional with progress reports. This allows the health care professional and the post rehab conditioning specialist to work as a team for the better health of the client.