MMOA Podcast - Physical Therapy | Fitness | Geriatrics

Latest Episodes:

Cognitive Reserve & Frailty Reversal: What It Means for Your Treatment Plan Oct 15, 2026

Show notes

Your pre-frail patients are your biggest opportunity, and their brain may be the variable you're missing.

In this episode, Dustin Jones (Lead Faculty, MMOA) breaks down a new BMC Geriatrics study that followed 13,000 community-dwelling older adults for six years, and what it means for your plan of care on Monday.

What you'll learn: ✅ What cognitive reserve is (and how it mirrors physical reserve) ✅ How higher cognitive reserve lowers the risk of progressing toward frailty ✅ Why pre-frail patients are the most responsive window you'll get ✅ 4 ways to bake cognitive demand into exercises you already use ✅ How to prescribe leisure participation seriously, and where to find community resources

Chapters (estimated from transcript timestamps — verify against the final edit) 00:00 Intro: cognitive reserve & frailty 01:30 The study: 13,000 older adults 02:20 How frailty was measured 03:00 Cognitive reserve vs. physical reserve 04:30 How cognitive reserve is measured 05:30 Key findings: progression & recovery 06:55 The pre-frail opportunity 09:15 Baking cognition into your plan of care 10:45 Prescribing leisure participation 12:00 Finding community resources 13:55 Wrap-up

Study Lifelong cognitive reserve as a resilience factor for frailty progression and recovery in later life. BMC Geriatrics, 2026. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12877-026-07919-4

Links 🎧 MMOA Podcast: https://seniorrehab.libsyn.com/ 📺 MMOA YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDuRJeLios_VBCgD8FpDgrg 📸 MMOA Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mmoa.icephysio/ 🎓 ICEphysio Certified Specialist in Older Adults: https://ptonice.com/certifications/mmoa/

Get research like this in your inbox every week 👇 Join the MMOA Digest: https://institute-of-clinical-excellence.kit.com/a3837f54b7

Your pre-frail patients are your biggest opportunity, and their brain may be the variable you're missing.

Study Lifelong cognitive reserve as a resilience factor for frailty progression and recovery in later life. BMC Geriatrics, 2026. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12877-026-07919-4

Get research like this in your inbox every week 👇 Join the MMOA Digest: https://institute-of-clinical-excellence.kit.com/a3837f54b7

Geri Clinicians are Pelvic Clinicians Case Study: Part 1 Oct 12, 2026

Show notes

Follow along as Dr. Shelby Blankenship goes through day 1 and 2 of an older adult case and how you can benefit address pelvic floor concerns without being a "pelvic floor PT" ----

Want to make sure you stay on top of all things geriatrics? Sign up for the free MMOA Digest Email. A bi-weekly 5 minute ready that's jam-packed with research reviews, intervention ideas, updates in our profession - https://institute-of-clinical-excellence.kit.com/a3837f54b7

"I think my PT went to easy on me" understanding how under dosage can be harmful in practice Oct 08, 2026

Show notes

Christina Prevett discusses the importance of effortful, adequately dosed rehabilitation for older adults, highlighting how underdosing can lead to downstream complications and shift patient expectations.

00:00 Introduction to the case of an older adult with knee replacements 02:23 Assessment of traditional rehab exercises and patient feedback 04:27 Introducing sliders and load progression in rehab 04:55 Patient's reflection on previous PT being too easy 05:22 Shifting narratives and expectations in geriatric rehab 07:18 The impact of patient expectations on rehab success 08:45 Risks of underdose care and downstream complications 10:11 Reframing the fear of flare-ups and overloading 11:09 The future of PT: effortful movement and patient expectations 12:08 Closing remarks and upcoming courses

Move More With MS Oct 05, 2026

Show notes

In this Episode, Dr. Annoushka Ranaraja explores therapy management for people with MS emphasizing aerobic training, resistance training, and balance training while taking into consideration the complexities that come with the disease process.

Want to make sure you stay up to date in all things Geriatrics in less than 3 minutes every other week? Join thousands of others in our free MMOA Digest Email list - https://institute-of-clinical-excellence.kit.com/a3837f54b7

Rethinking Geri Rehab: The Hyphen Model (Rebroadcast from PTonICE Podcast) Oct 02, 2026

Show notes

What if the future of geriatric rehab looked less like a traditional clinic—and a lot more like a gym?

In this episode, ICEphysio's CEO, Jeff Moore, interviews Older Adult Faculty, Dustin Jones, to talk about Hyphen, a gym-first model that brings skilled rehabilitation, group fitness, and lifelong health under one roof for older adults.

Dustin breaks down where the idea for Hyphen came from, how the model allows clinicians to leverage Medicare benefits as an on-ramp to long-term fitness, and what they've learned while launching and scaling the concept.

We also dive into why ICE Physio-trained clinicians are uniquely positioned to thrive in this environment—combining skilled rehab with coaching, fitness, and a higher standard for what aging can look like.

If you're a clinician who loves working with older adults but wants to think beyond the traditional boundaries of geriatric rehab, this conversation is for you.

Links:

*This episode is a rebroadcast from the PTonICE Podcast.

Your "Go to Guide" when your patient is moving to Memory Care Oct 01, 2026

Show notes

Working with someone who is moving to a memory care community? This episode serves as your "Go to Guide" for how you can provide education and information to support the family, collaborate with the facility, and be there for the patient. Listen to learn practical tips that help make this, sometimes tricky transition, a little more seamless.

Oral Hygiene and Overall Health Sep 29, 2026

Show notes

Your smile is about more than your teeth—it may offer important clues about your overall health.For clinicians working with older adults, oral health deserves a closer look. Poor oral health is associated with conditions like dementia, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Common medications can also cause dry mouth, making oral hygiene more challenging.Ask your patients: "Do you have a dentist you trust?"

Bleeding gums, mouth sores that don't heal, or swallowing difficulties may be reasons to seek further evaluation. And if brushing is difficult, consider what barriers might be getting in the way—like limited endurance, hand function, or access to supplies. Sometimes the mouth is one of the first places we notice that something needs attention. Save this reminder and share it with a clinician who works with older adults.What oral health barriers do you see most often in your patients?#OlderAdultCare #OralHealth #HealthcareEducation #GeriatricCare #ClinicalPractice

Stop Discharging Blind: A Smarter Way to Assess the Home. SafeHomeAI with Justin Strause, PT, DPT Sep 25, 2026

Show notes

You send someone home and hope the environment holds up. Justin, an outpatient PT, got tired of hoping, so he built Safe Home AI: an AI home-safety assessment that turns a few phone photos into a prioritized, tailored report patients and families can actually act on. We get into what it does, where it's headed, and the clinical judgment behind assessing any home well.

What you'll take away: – Why "how's your home?" gets you an answer you can't use and what to ask instead – The discharge gap between leaving a facility and home health arriving, and why it dictates so much of what follows – The big rocks of any home assessment: pattern recognition, the bathroom, lighting, and future-proofing with blocking between the studs – Why a 70-item checklist overwhelms people into doing nothing and how triaging to the top 3 fixes changes everything – How a clinician with no tech background built a real tool by refusing to stay still

Chapters: 00:00 – Keeping people home as long as possible 01:00 – Certified Aging in Place & the billable-time problem 02:57 – The article that lit the spark 04:45 – What Safe Home AI actually does 07:09 – Tailored reports + one-tap product links 07:48 – "What to fix first" (and what's already working) 08:52 – Who it's really for and where it's headed 11:19 – The discharge gap clinicians dread 13:20 – Why the 70-item checklist fails 15:37 – Privacy: what happens to the photos 17:51 – Consumer model now, clinician model next 20:10 – The big rocks of home assessment 24:17 – Advice for the clinician sitting on a problem 26:35 – Try Safe Home AI / reach Justin

Links: – Safe Home AI: https://safehome-ai.com – Contact Justin: justin@safehome-ai.com – "Something Big Is Happening" by Matt Shumer - https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/something-big-happening-matt-shumer-so5he/

Want helpful conversations like this one in your inbox? Join the MMOA Digest 👉 https://institute-of-clinical-excellence.kit.com/a3837f54b7

Your fitness tracker is lying to you Sep 24, 2026

Show notes

Your fitness tracker is lying to you! The ring on your watch may be closed, but you may be missing key elements required to ensure your patients actually live a long, healthy life!

Dr. Jeff Musgrave, PT, DPT, shares what is actually being tracked and what is NOT.

3 Clinical Pearls from the 4Ms Framework Sep 21, 2026

Show notes

Join Dr. Macy Bolt as she unpacks the 4Ms Framework: What Matters, Medication, Mentation, Mobility and the impact that implementation can have on major functional outcomes for our hospitalized patients.

Rosner, Thombley, Rogers, Adler-Milstein. "Patient Outcomes Associated With a Composite Measure of 4Ms Care Adherence in the Inpatient Setting." Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, 2026.

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