Czech Republic
http://www.rehabps.com/REHABILITATION/Home.html
http://www.rehabps.cz/rehab/certified_practitioners.php (Certified practitioners)
http://www.rehabps.cz/rehab/certified_trainers.php (Certified trainers)
Oregon
For more than 30 years, Dr. Marc Heller has studied and treated the spine with a manual practitioner’s perspective. He has a special interest in back pain. In his writing and teaching, he focuses on the interplay between joint hypermobility and joint restriction. He emphasizes and uses low-force mobilization methods including muscle energy, counterstrain, and other lower force techniques.
Dr. Heller also uses many soft-tissue approaches including Graston Technique and Stecco’s Fascial Manipulation, as well as various myofascial release methods. He has studied and incorporated international rehabilitation principles including the work of Dr. Vladimir Janda and Dr. Craig Liebenson, as well as physical therapists Mark Comerford and Mark Bookhout, into his practice.
His passion is synthesis, bringing a broad understanding of what is the essential message within different manual and rehab techniques. He is dedicated to continuous learning, from classes, from reading, from paying attention to difficult cases in practice. He teaches seminars throughout the U.S. regarding back pain, how to assess it and how to treat the common patterns that cause pain. He also has written on a variety of topics emphasizing low-force manipulation, rehabilitation, and soft-tissue methods.
Dr. Heller is a 1979 cum laude graduate of National College of Chiropractic, (NUHS). He has a private practice in Ashland, Oregon.
For more information, contact Dr. Heller at mheller@marchellerdc.com or visit his practice's Web site for resources or read his bio here.
Minnesota
Mayo Comprehensive Pain Rehabilitation Center (PRC). Click here for the program handbook.
Massachusetts
If you’re in the the Boston area, looking for a good rehab facility with a focus on women’s health, this one has a great reputation. Check out the wellness bootcamp and the acupuncture program.
New York
John E. Sarno, MD, was a pivotal figure in the arena of pain management because of his hotly debated approach to the diagnosis and management of back pain. You can read an interview with him here. Since Sarno’s retirement in 2012, Ira Rashbaum, MD, has taken over the care of his patients, and also sees new patients. Sarno passed away in June 2017.
Florida
Founded in 1863, the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) is a world leader in orthopedics, rheumatology and rehabilitation. Michael L. Reed, is the Director of the Hospital for Special Surgery Spine & Sport, a branch of HSS located in Florida. Learn more about the facility and its mission here.
Here is a thorough cheat sheet for exercises to strengthen lumbar instability and additional background information on why these specific exercises work in targeting this region and alleviating back pain.
This video, called “Understanding Pain: What to do about it in less than five minutes?” details certain evidence-based approaches to chronic pain treatment.
California
Redhawk PT, located in the Potrero Hill area of San Francisco, is a physical therapist-owned and -operated business that focuses on personalized care and holistic healing and recovery.
Arizona, Florida, Minnesota
The renowned Mayo Clinic – with locations in Arizona, Florida, and Minnesota – has a Pain Rehabilitation Center (PRC) in Rochester, Minnesota. Three types of outpatient programs aim to restore patients with chronic pain to an active lifestyle: two are designed for adults, a three-week and a two-day program; and the third is a pediatric program for patients between the ages of 13 to young adulthood. The programs involve behavioral therapy, and guide patients toward a medication-free lifestyle.
Ohio
The Cleveland Clinic, in Cleveland, OH – regarded as one of the top 4 hospitals in the US – offers a Chronic Pain Rehabilitation Program with individualized treatment. The program received a Center of Excellence award from the American Pain Society (APS) in 2012.
Nevada
The Las Vegas Recovery Center, run by medical director Mel Pohl, MD, FASAM, offers abstinence-based programs to treat chronic pain and addiction. The Chronic Pain Treatment program is designed to reduce patients’ pain and restore them to functional lifestyles without the use of opiate narcotics.
Washington
The Rehabilitation Institute of Washington in Seattle, WA is a multidisciplinary rehabilitation program led by professionals whose expertise is working with patients with chronic pain, guiding them through rehabilitation intended to restore them to functional health and capabilities. The team at RIW includes physicians, psychologists, physical and occupational therapists, and rehabilitation counselors.
New York
Purely by coincidence, I walked by a doorway in Manhattan and noticed a small sign and a brochure for Attune Holistic Fitness. I’m normally wary of anything labeled “holistic,” a term that doesn’t mean anything in particular, but after a trip up a long flight of stairs, I knew I’d found a gem.
Eva Pelegrin’s sparkling and friendly facility is perfect for rehabilitating a back pain patient – assuming you can make it up those stairs. (She assures me that she has 80-year-old patients flying up them.) I worked out with Pelegrin herself, and I can tell you that she really knows her stuff. She began her career in advertising, but after years of bi-weekly business trips to Europe, she left to become a functional movement specialist. In 2005, she started Attune, determined to focus on all aspects of a client’s health and wellbeing. Attune has other well-trained exercise specialists, bodywork practitioners and acupuncturists on staff as well.
Texas
Tom Mayer runs one of the oldest – and the best – functional rehabilitation programs in the U.S. With a return-to-work focus, P.R.I.D.E (Productive Rehabilitation Institute of Dallas for Ergonomics) reconditions back pain sufferers, aids with withdrawal from opioid narcotics, and addresses psychological concerns.
Austria, Australia, Germany, Luxembourg, Switzerland
This no-nonsense website is an excellent resource for preventative and therapeutic strength training. Their slogan? “A strong back knows no pain.” They have locations worldwide, and will conduct a free first personal session to lay out your situation and your training goals.
Washington
Dr. Stanley A. Herring is a clinical professor at the University of Washington in Seattle, WA, in the departments of Rehabilitation Medicine, Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine, and Neurological Surgery. Though he specializes in sports-medicine (working on a team of physicians for the Seattle Seahawks and the Seattle Mariners), his expertise is also in non-operative musculoskeletal medicine and disorders of the spine.
Oregon
The Oregon Health & Science University in Beaverton, OR (essentially Portland) developed this Orthopaedics & Rehabilitation Clinic at Cornell West to address sports medicine, spine care, joint care (along with knee, hip, shoulder, elbow, and hand care), pediatric care, X-ray and imaging, and physical therapy and rehabilitation. The clinic has thirteen primary providers, each with their specialty, but almost all have rehabilitation as an area of expertise.
ACE, the American Council on Exercise, sponsored a study in 2007 that assessed the effects of functional fitness rehabilitation programs, aimed to help older adults remain active and independent as they age. The results were decidedly positive: read a writeup on the study, which details examples of the kinds of exercises the participants performed and tracks changes over the course of the study. The website also has a trainer search function so you can get started with a fitness program.