What is Physiatry?
A Physiatrist is a nerve, muscle, and spine expert who treats injuries that affect how you function. Physiatrists have completed training in the medical specialty physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R).
Physiatrists, or PM&R specialists, are medical doctors who are:
- Experts at diagnosing and treating pain.
- Return injured patients to work quickly.
- Focus on workplace modification and patient education to prevent re-injury.
- Restore maximum function lost through injury.
- Provide non-surgical treatments such as rehabilitation and medications.
Patient Evaluation and Treatment Options
Physiatric evaluations are modeled after the traditional history and physical examination. However, physiatric training goes beyond these conventions once a diagnosis is established. Post-diagnostic approaches in physiatry are patient-centered, humanistic, and compassionate. Beyond the initial focus on diagnostic considerations, Dr Schultz considers the impact of the diagnosis on the patient’s function and quality of life, as defined one’s day-to-day activities and/or the painful conditions or other symptoms that affect health and well-being. Dr Schultz evaluates patients and designs treatment plans by taking into account the bio-psycho-social and ecological factors that affect function and quality of life.
Physiatric evaluation and treatment approaches are integrative and cross interdisciplinary boundaries; we are not limited to one organ or system. We seek out and obtain medical, social, psychological, vocational, and avocational information to create and formulate a comprehensive evaluation, to understand the whole patient. At its foundation, PM&R is both complex in the gathering and interpretation of data, and holistic in our understanding of patients.
The field also embraces the concepts of pragmatic and conservative treatment, giving physiatrists the knowledge and skills to provide non-surgical treatments, many of which are low risk and potentially highly beneficial. Patient and social support system/caregiver education about diagnosis, prognosis, treatment options, and strategies to improve function and decrease the burden of care, is essential to our practice. Physiatrists believe in empowering patients and their social supports and caregivers through knowledge.
By taking your whole body into account, Dr. Schultz is able to accurately pinpoint the cause of your pain, and with a proper treatment plan in place, he is able to help you enhance your performance and improve your quality of life WITHOUT SURGERY!
Some of the pain conditions treated by Dr. Schultz include:
Back and neck pain. - Disk protrusions and herniations.
- Shoulder, knee, and joint pain.
- Nerve pain, numbness, tingling.
- Sciatica (leg pain).
- Carpal tunnel syndrome.
- RSD (Reflex Sympathy Dystrophy) / CRPS (Complex Regional Pain Synd.)
- Muscle spasms and Chronic Muscle pain.
- Failed back surgery syndrome.
- Headaches.
- Fibromyalgia.
- Arthritis.
