The pain you’re going through imprisons you. You visit your medical doctor, but the pain persists. A chiropractor is your next stop, but the pain persists. A friend suggests a physical therapist might be the panacea you’re desperately seeking, but the pain persists.
You repeatedly spin the medical wheel in a frantic search for a remedy. You rush from medical appointment to medical appointment, thinking, This is eating up time up time and money, and the staff looks tired and hurried when I’m there. It’s not worth it, so you decide to live with your pain.
And then you find yourself at Performance Spine & Sports Medicine, where the wheel stops spinning.
Performance Spine & Sports Medicine offers exceptional orthopedic medical care, sports medicine and pain management with an emphasis on nonsurgical solutions and treatments. Their medical facility is superior to most others because of their ideal location, excellent organization and clinical results. You know when you’re in a PSSM facility, it’s unmistakable. Just a mile from the I-95 exit on the Newtown Bypass (Route 322), an experienced clinical team practices a team-based medical approach on their patients.
“Patients really appreciate the affordable convenience of having all these services under one roof,” says Kevin Hsu, M.D., medical director at Performance Spine & Sports Medicine. “Because we’re under one roof all the doctors can simply communicate face to face and the results begin there for how we work and how the patient is cared for.”
The staff at Performance Spine & Sports Medicine coordinates patient care and tailors a customized treatment plan to optimize his or her health and wellness regardless of the type or extent of the injury. As a result of this integration their outcomes have been fantastic.
Whether a patient’s concerns are due to an aching shoulder, cranky back or balky knee or elbow, Dr. Hsu is the first person they see. Board certified in physical medicine and rehabilitation, and a diplomate of the American Board of Pain Medicine, Dr. Hsu will conduct a one-hour evaluation consisting of X-rays and electro-diagnostic testing to assess the patient’s condition and needs.
The patient is then evaluated by their chiropractors for structural issues. They will work with the whole body to correct a variety of ailments, from back aches and pains, to shoulder pain, to tennis elbow.
The patient continues to be examined next by one of PSSM’s physical therapists to assess any functional challenges. For wellness care, patients can also have medical acupuncture performed by a medical doctor and massage therapy offered by a licensed massage therapist. The convenience, the care, the location sets this medical practice apart.
“The focus of our physical therapists is on functional patient independence,” says Jenn Mandell, DPT. “Initially, the treatment plan is one-on-one time, manual therapies to get out of pain quickly to start real work in rehab. After that, patients work on independent exercises and are taught skills needed to manage their own symptoms so they don’t have to repeatedly return to care.”
Patients may and can also be examined by the podiatrist Philip Jimenez, DPM, who will assess whether the cause of a patient’s lower extremity or back pain might be caused by a foot ailment.
“We are a fully comprehensive medical environment,” says Dr. Jimenez. “We have better outcomes for patients than those with fragmented services because all our doctors and therapists are on the same page with each patient.”
PSSM also offers the latest in strength evaluation and assessment equipment. Its sports-performance platform offers computerized laser and sensor technology, which enables clinicians to quantitatively and objectively analyze patients’ movements. The data is used to develop appropriate strength and conditioning programs, pre-rehab programs or physical therapy programs.
Performance Spine & Sports Medicine offers OptoJump, an innovative computerized gait-analysis system that brings a new philosophy of assessment and optimization of performance to the world of competitive sports. It is designed for the development of a specific and customized training program for the athlete, based exclusively on precise objective data.
“This technology is used extensively by athletes in Europe such as players on
A.C. Milan, Liverpool, Real Madrid and now in China to obtain quantifiable evidence to determine biomechanics,” says Joseph Jimenez, M.D., cofounder and co-owner of PSSM’s two offices. “Oftentimes you hear on TV, strength experts and coaches talk about using biomechanics, but they’re just looking. It’s still very subjective and inaccurate. With the data we get with our technology, we can better attack the problem with objective information.”
Exciting things are happening at Performance Spine & Sports Medicine. With a proactive culture, it has taken these technologies to professional sports teams such as the Trenton Titans, and has also worked with players from the New England Patriots and Jacksonville Jaguars.
Corporate philanthropy is important to PSSM and they are donating their time and care to recreational leagues and high schools to assess athletes for concussion studies throughout the Delaware Valley. They just recently became an official ImPact testing site for pre-concussion assessments. PSSM concussion assessments go so much further than their industry peers because they conduct both the ImPact cognitive test and use OptoJump for computerized biomechanical assessments. Using both tests allows them to get a truly cognitive and biomechanical assessment of an athlete’s pre-concussion profile. That way should the athlete ever get a concussion, the assessments provide the athlete’s baseline numbers before the concussion was inflicted.
“We do more computerized biomechanics analysis than anyone in the area—anyone,” says Dr. Jimenez.
Performance Spine & Sports Medicine also offers advancements in nonoperative orthopedic medical—namely, regenerative treatments such as PRP (Platelet Rich Plasma), in which blood is drawn from a patient, spun down, and platelets with stem-cell capabilities are extracted and re-injected into the damaged area, such as a torn ligament, to help accelerate healing.
Among those on whom Performance Spine & Sports Medicine has performed this procedure is New England Patriots cornerback Ras-I Dowling and Buffalo Bills starting wide receiver Donald Jones.
In addition to being concerned about the well-being of its patients, Performance Spine & Sports Medicine is also intimately concerned about issues in its communities, donating money to scholarships the local Fraternal Order of Police.
“We want to be socially relevant,” Dr. Jimenez says. “Philanthropy is one of our company principles. It’s all part of making life better for people and giving back to the community that gives us so much.”
Performance Spine & Sports Medicine
828A Newtown-Yardley Road
Newtown, PA 18940
Phone: 215-504-2223
Fax: 215-504-2141
Hours: Monday through Thursday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Friday, 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Website: www.sportsmedicinenewtownpa.com
