Spasticity Beyond the Basics: Optimizing Outcomes Through Interdisciplinary Management
Spasticity Beyond the Basics: Optimizing Outcomes Through Interdisciplinary Management
A three-hour interactive workshop for rehabilitation professionals managing spasticity after stroke, TBI, SCI, and other upper motor neuron conditions.
Left unmanaged or treated in isolation, spasticity contributes to contracture, pain, loss of function, and caregiver burden. This workshop presents a coordinated, goal-directed model of care that integrates medical and rehabilitation strategies rather than delivering them in parallel.
What we'll cover:
Hour 1 — Medical management: patient selection, goal setting, oral and intrathecal pharmacologic options, chemodenervation, and neurolysis
Hour 2 — Rehabilitation management: differential assessment of neural vs. non-neural hypertonia, positioning, serial casting, motor retraining, and translating impairment-level gains into function
Hour 3 — Interdisciplinary case discussion: clinical reasoning, treatment sequencing, and outcome measurement
You'll leave able to:
Differentiate spasticity from contracture, dystonia, and other movement dysfunction
Describe indications and limitations of medical and procedural interventions
Sequence rehab interventions in coordination with medical management
Build unified, patient-centered plans directed at functional goals
Who should attend: PTs, OTs, PTAs, COTAs, SLPs, physicians, APPs, students, and other rehab professionals. Intermediate-level content; no prerequisites.
Presenters:
Nathan B. Darji, DO — Board-certified PM&R and Brain Injury Medicine physician, Atrium Health Carolinas Rehabilitation; Assistant Professor of Brain Injury
Katie Sewell, PT, DPT, NCS — Board-Certified Neurologic Clinical Specialist and Clinical Coordinator of Clinical Excellence & Education, Carolinas Rehabilitation (Advocate Health)
Both presenters co-developed the interdisciplinary spasticity clinic at Atrium Health Carolinas Rehabilitation and have presented nationally on spasticity management.