Meet Your Therapist
Laura Hamilton, PT, MPT, CFMT
Laura graduated from California State University, Northridge with her Master’s Degree in Physical Therapy without any intentions of adding any further alphabet soup designations to the end of her name. Her original intent was to follow up with high quality continuing education to become well-rounded as a therapist to meet the needs of a small community. However, on her path, she stumbled upon the Institute of Physical Art, thanks to another physical therapist friend. After taking 2 courses, she was officially “bit by the bug” and quickly signed up for as many other courses with the Institute as she could. As she continued through the curriculum she could feel in her body how this approach to treatment was different. She found that as old injuries were improving from the exposure to treatment techniques during lab time, she was beginning to feel more connected to her own body again. This restored her hope of maintaining an active lifestyle, despite the many compounding injuries stacking up against her. Ultimately, she decided to become certified as a functional manual therapist.
Laura’s clinical experience is primarily in the outpatient clinical setting, and she is comfortable treating a wide variety of orthopedic and neurological conditions. However, she feels privileged to have taken some time away from the outpatient setting to spend a few years in the skilled nursing inpatient rehabilitation setting to further develop her skill set with the aging population.
The creation of Revive and Thrive Physical Therapy and Wellness stems from a desire to move away from the traditional medical model where patients are not mere numbers or metrics, but living people with feelings, families, and unique goals in life. Much intention and thought has been invested into developing not only the healing environment itself, but the clinical skillset with this goal in mind: to deliver high quality care to this community and the central coast.
What does CFMT even mean?
The letters stand for Certified Functional Manual Therapist. This designation can only be obtained through the Institute of Physical Art. To be considered to sit for the exam, pre-requisites involve completing more than 220 hours of post-graduate coursework heavy in both hands-on, lab intensive material, as well as scientific evidence and theory of the subject matter. For content mastery, courses are expected to be taken 2-3 times before sitting for the exam. To put this time commitment into perspective, the average therapist will complete about the same number of hours in continuing education courses over their entire career. In order to achieve this status of CFMT, one must demonstrate proficiency of all material with an 80% or higher in a total of 7 written and 7 oral practical examinations during a week long certification process which takes place in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.
Beyond Traditional Techniques
Functional Manual Therapy goes beyond traditional mobilization and mechanical treatment approaches. It utilizes:
Functional mobilization – Assesses mobility in weight-bearing and non-weight-bearing positions
Soft tissue mobilization – Treats restrictions in muscles, fascia, etc.
Neuromuscular facilitation – Facilitates proper muscle activation.
Motor Control Training – Re-trains proper motor strategies.