Dr. Laura Barreca Engel, PT, DPT: Physical Therapist, Co-Director
At Custom Performance, we emphasize education amongst the staff to perform at our highest level for each of our patients. We also emphasize education amongst each of our patients (if interested!) to provide informed and guided care with the quickest path to recovery. Our number one goal as providers here at Custom, and something that we pride ourselves on, is walking each of our patients through the anatomy and physiology of their injury. We find that educating our patients on the “what and why” behind their injuries gives them the knowledge and empowerment to rehab the right way and better understand their own bodies.
On initial evaluation, your physical therapist will complete a full examination followed by a deep dive into what muscles/tissues/tendons/bones are involved. We talk this through utilizing resources such as our iPads for visuals to complete the full picture. Most of our patients are extremely invested in their care and want to learn and understand what their injuries are, how they formed, and what they can do moving forward. We love to answer questions and take the deep dive!
Within our programming, we emphasize “the why” behind each exercise to truly understand its purpose and how it relates back to your injury and goals. Understanding leads to compliance, which all turns back around to getting better quicker and running strong again. The same holds true for the gait analyses that we complete on initial evaluation. We want our patients to understand not only what we see when they run, but why certain findings may be important and how we can work on them throughout rehab.For our clinicians, how do we stay educated? Once a month, we host a skills lab surrounding varying topics to meet as a group and broaden our knowledge base. This gives us time to learn from each other, work through different clinical topics, and continue developing our skills as a team. We also each have bi-weekly meetings with our Director of Clinical Excellence, Cat Fitzgerald, to debrief on challenging cases and other weak points.
Each clinician spends time on their own deep diving into the literature, and we attend continuing education courses, when possible, to update our research bases—the most recent being The Female Athlete Conference in Boston in 2025. Staying up to date allows us to continue evolving our treatment approaches and provide the best care we can for our patients.
We value education at Custom Performance and know that this is an invaluable piece to getting our patients running their strongest and most efficiently while staying injury-free. The more our patients understand the “what and why,” the more confident and invested they can be in their recovery.