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September 16, 2024
WEST CENTRAL WISCONSIN – Some people are lucky enough to have decided what they want to do at a young age.
That, Optimum Therapies Marketing Director Joey Trcka said, was the case for founder Darrin Schober.
According to Schober’s bio on Optimum Therapies’ website (optimumtherapies.com), he said he has always wanted to be a physical therapist.
Schober said he suspects “it comes (from) my love to help others and the challenge and intrigue of working on such an integrated machine as the human body.”
“He’s always wanted to help people in all kinds of ways (with) physical therapy…,” Trcka said. “He just loves seeing people go from whatever condition they’re in to excelling afterward.”
Today, Optimum Therapies – which Schober started in 2001 – has six locations: one in Eau Claire, Menomonie, Rice Lake, Barron and Lake Hallie – which just opened last year – and one in Bismarck, North Dakota.
Services
Trcka said Optimum Therapies focuses primarily on physical therapy – treating problems, such as vertigo/dizziness, ankle sprains, lower back pain, hamstring and knee strains, shoulder impingement and plantar fasciitis.
However, he said each location has its own unique services.
“A couple of our locations, like Eau Claire and Menomonie, offer medical massages,” he said. “But within physical therapy, we have different services, like dry needlings. Kate (Todd) at Lake Hallie really focuses on pelvic rehab and orthopedics.”
According to Optimum Therapies’ website, dry-needling uses the same type of needle that is used in acupuncture, however, dry needling focuses on specific muscles that are tight and causing problems.
“Dry needling is palpating those muscles as a therapist, identifying it and then putting the needle directly in that muscle to, in essence, cause it to reboot or like you’re going to flip a breaker switch,” Schober said. “You’re just resetting the trigger-point zone in that muscle.”
When it comes to pelvic rehabilitation, physical therapists who have been specifically trained in the matter, Schober said, can help through treatment approaches, such as pelvic floor exercises, hands-on care, release restrictions in various muscles, stretching, nutrition and more.
Pelvic therapists can treat:
- Pregnancy and postpartum recovery
- Diastasis Rectus Abdominis
- Bowel and bladder issues
- Urinary urgency/frequency
- Incontinence
- Constipation
- Pelvic organ prolapse
- Painful intercourse
- Generalized pelvic pain
- Vaginismus
- Vulvodynia (pain of the vulva)
- Musculoskeletal complaints involving pain in the back, hips, groin and/or abdomen
Optimum Therapies, Trcka said, also helps with vestibular and balance – which can include balance retaining, vestibular rehabilitation, the canalith reposition maneuver and a self-directed home exercise program.
Other services the clinic offers include manual therapy – which he said involves treatments, such as muscle energy techniques; direct joint mobilization; high velocity, low amplitude thrust; and functional indirect technique and specialty treatments – including pilates, personal training and various sports clinics.
Opening in Lake Hallie
The decision to open an additional location in Lake Hallie, Trcka said, comes from the business’s goal of promoting ownership for its physical therapists.
In this case, Trcka said, the idea to open up this location stemmed from Todd.
“Kate joined us more than five years ago,” Trcka said. “She was a new grad from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, and she was working at the Eau Claire clinic.”
After Schober and Todd got talking, Trcka said the conversation led to Todd taking the next step in her career – business ownership.
“They saw a market and locality for a clinic (in Lake Hallie),” he said. “We definitely saw a need for more (pelvic rehab care), when she was treating pelvic rehab patients in Eau Claire – she was busy with it.”
As Todd continued to develop an interest in pelvic rehab, Trcka said she and the Optimum Therapies team knew the space in Lake Hallie could grow – “and it has continued to grow” – especially with the recent hospital and clinic closures in the area.
“We definitely saw an increase in patient volume when all that was happening,” he said.
Todd and the team recently celebrated the first anniversary of the Lake Hallie location being open with an official ribbon-cutting ceremony.
“Pelvic rehab (has) been growing as a whole,” Trcka said. “People haven’t really been informed on what it was in the past. I think (there’s) definitely increased awareness of it. Word of mouth has been huge (with this location).”
According to Todd’s biography, she said she enjoys continuously learning – which is why the increased awareness of pelvic rehab has been rewarding, noting it “never gets old to see patients succeed.”
Trcka said Lake Hallie’s busy schedule is a testament to how the physical therapy business is helping the community.
“It’s been great – especially with Lake Hallie,” he said. “People love Kate. She has such a fun personality and the results are always great, too, for our patients. We have great outcomes.”
As the team at Optimum Therapies looks to the future, Trcka said they want to continue to see even more current physical therapists take the step into clinic ownership.
“Of course, we don’t know where that always will be, but we just hope to continue to see that and continue serving the Wisconsin and the North Dakota areas,” he said.
