Providence St. Vincent Sports Therapy - Portland

"There are two basic PT modalities here, and literally two different sides of rooms to accommodate, suite 361 and 362. JP Fairhart is who you want. He does the more manual therapies and manual resistance, which for my muscle and neurological leg conditions is far more helpful with pain and motion relief than tradition PT. My legs always move a little better after our session. I formerly worked with their neurological therapist on the other side and felt extremely let down by her performance. She was nice but was completely focused on just giving you a handout of things to do at home instead of working with you at the facility. I've done years of physical therapy for my chronic conditions and require constant ongoing manual care, being sent home and told to basically do it yourself was not helpful nor encouraging. There are many things that manual and massage therapy can cover that just can't happen with self care. JP helps stretch, massage and bend it out with hands on manipulation, so much more beneficial. On the downside, sessions are only 45 minutes at Providence, which is weird being that most physical therapy places usually offer 60 minutes or more as standard. My previous therapies were two hour sessions two to three times a week. Not sure why Providence insists on shorter sessions. If you end up here for PT addressing muscles or nerves, go see JP!"

"I feel greatly improved by my experience. In me, the therapist (Jon McCaulley) had 4 spine conditions plus a resultant painful sciatica, so he had to "triangulate" on the best path. It wasn't a silver-bullet process, and I never thought it would be - but then I thought my life was changed permanently. He engaged my understanding and involvement, because my different issues indicated competing physical principles. That way, while at home if something felt wrong or painful, I was to discontinue it immediately and notify him. That was easy enough to follow, and after the first visit, a particular take-home exercise made things worse, so I stopped and let him know. That resultant information not only indicated what not to do, but he could then stop that process and focus on the beneficial one, provided it, too, wouldn't hurt. By the end of the 2nd visit, after trying out a few exercises "in-house" to make sure we were on the right track, he developed a plan that was most effective, and I could focus on a great pain-free, quickly evolving regimine that improved my freedom of movement, my choices of activity, and best of all, was virtually painless. When our sessions were ending, he developed an ongoing action plan to continue improvement, and a "fall-back" set of basic exercises if I lapsed. I now can garden, work for hours on my feet, and feel like I have my life back."

"Nice enough people but during my second visit the therapist reinjured me and increased my pain by a factor of 10. Halfway through the third visit said he gives up and I will have to go back to a doctor. Beware."