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Hello, I just joined the listserve two days ago and have grown both personally and professionally from reading the emails. I have been a physical therapist for 34 years, and now teach the PT Assistant Program at our local community college. Because of my 'experience' in clinics, home health, etc., and because I'm older now (!), I STRESS with my students the importance of the interaction between a therapist, therapist assistant, and families, caregivers, and patient. I truly believe that improvements occur not from techniques and exercise only, but through our caring and our commitment to the people we serve. I encourage the enabling of the patient to take ownership for doing exercises, for the therapist to be a 'coach' during the therapy sessions, to be non-judgmental, etc. A friend of mine come to speak with my students about what it is like for her to have PD. The students are always changed after she visits. As a PT I often feel frustrated that I cannot do more, suggest more, support more, etc. Physical Therapy is my passion and reading the emails over the past two days has touched me deeply. As I work with people (I'm on-call at a few places now) I find that I learn more each and every time there is an interaction. This has been true over the past years, too. I am humbly asking any of you who wish to, tell me what you don't like about therapists and what you find most helpful. I have been saving several emails and will continue to do so from this listserve and will give them to my students. Your comments will help to make my students even better at what they will be doing. When I first read the email about a man named Peter, I cried, but I also knew that he and his family definitely received support from all of you on this email list. How powerful that is! I am so happy that I found this listerve............ Sue, PT ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn