ROCKLAND — Kim and Michael Gallagher operate Continuum Physical Therapy at 91 Camden Street in Rockland. Both Kim and Michael hold advanced degrees in physical therapy. Michael holds an additional degree as an orthopaedic clinical specialist. Penobscot Bay Pilot spoke to the Gallaghers about what physical therapy involves.

PBP: Why would someone need physical therapy?

“It could be any number of reasons,” said Michael. “They could be having pain in some part of their body; they may have had a stroke or some other type of neurological compromise; they may have had surgery that requires some type of rehabilitation. The common thread to all those things is there’s something in their body that’s causing them to have trouble moving. And that’s what we help them with.

PBP: Typically, what type of cases do you see?

“Most of the time we see people with muscular-skeletal problems,” said Michael. “Shoulder pain, back pain, neck pain or some type of injury to a joint, muscle or tendon, some type of impairment that comes with an injury. They’ll be stiff, they’ll be tight, they’ll be weak and that’s where we help them get back.”

PBP: What is the difference between physical therapy and occupational therapy?

“That’s a really good question because the line has gotten blurred in recent years especially in the outpatient realm,” said Michael. “Traditionally physical therapy dealt more with gross motor movement, large movements such as walking, standing, pulling and pushing. Occupational therapy, as I understand it, dealt with finer movements — brushing your teeth, combing your hair, the finer motor activities of daily living. In an outpatient setting, especially in New England, it has become that occupational therapists deal more with hand and wrist injuries, whereas physical therapists deal with the entire body.”

PBP: Typically how long will someone spend in a physical therapy situation and do they have to be referred by a physician?

“It really does depend on the injury,” said Michael. “I saw someone yesterday who came in for one visit and yet we have other people who will be here for months. An example is somebody who had a rotator cuff repair in the shoulder; they’ll be here for several months. The average is eight to 10 visits. To answer your second question: No. In Maine, as in other states, they don’t have to be referred by a physician. Some insurance companies still require that, but somebody can walk in here off the street and say, “my back hurts, please treat me,” and we can do that.”

PBP: The type of treatments you do, is it akin to chiropractic treatments?

“There is some overlap,” said Michael. “I can’t really speak to what a chiropractor actually does. What we do is a combination of manual therapy, which is hands-on therapy, and may include joint manipulation, which a lot of people do associate with chiropractors. We do a lot of soft tissue work that some people may think of as soft tissue massage. We do exercises; we may do electrical modalities like laser or electrical stimulation. Actually, there probably is more overlap between physical therapy and chiropractic care in some ways than there is between physical and occupational therapy.”

Both Kim and Michael have been practicing since 2001. Kim explained that it requires a graduate level degree to become a physical therapist.

“The class we graduated from was the last master’s level degree; it’s now a doctorate level degree,” said Michael. “It an undergraduate degree in a related field and then it’s a doctor of physical therapy degree after that.”

“Which is an additional three years after your undergraduate degree, so it’s a total of seven years,” added Kim.

“If you’re going to walk in here off the street without seeing a doctor first, we need to make sure first and foremost that we do no harm,” said Michael. “We need to know that we are looking at is a problem that physical therapy is appropriate for. That’s were the extra learning comes in because we need to make sure that the person that we’re seeing is somebody we should be seeing. If we were doing what we were doing forty years ago which were technicians following doctor’s orders that would be different. It has created a shortage of therapists nationally though.”

“We live in Hope, which we love, but Rockland is a great city to do business in,” said Kim. “Rockland is centrally located and we really enjoy being part of this business community. Everyone has just been great and very welcoming to our business.”