Elevate Wellness Offers Wide Range of Services To Bring Physical Therapy to Underserved Region
Delivering high quality physical therapy and patient-centered care are two goals of Elevate Wellness, a McCook-based clinic founded by experienced physical therapist Emily Young to serve western Nebraska and the surrounding region.
- published: 2023/10/17
- contact: NBDC Communications - Nebraska Business Development Center
- phone: 308.252.2177
- email: mdavis-magnuson@unomaha.edu
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- NBDC
- North Platte
- McCook
- PT
- Elevate Wellness
- Women's Health
- Physical therapy
McCook, Nebraska – Delivering high quality physical therapy and patient-centered care are two goals of Elevate Wellness, a McCook-based clinic founded by experienced physical therapist Emily Young to serve western Nebraska and the surrounding region.
“Working in an outpatient facility in Cozad showed me how a good clinic puts the patient first,” says Young, who opened Elevate Wellness in early 2021. “It comes down to truly listening to your patient in order to find the root cause, rather than simply putting a Band-Aid on things.”
Young is a certified physical therapist (PT), doctor of physical therapy (DPT), certified lactation consultant (CLC) and a pregnancy and postpartum corrective exercise specialist. She has worked in rural outpatient physical therapy for over 11 years treating a wide range of physical dysfunction from orthopedics and sports to women’s health specialization.
“There is a huge gap in women’s health care and physical therapy services in our region,” she says. “From Kearney west is highly underserved.”
That focus has since evolved to meet the community’s needs, she says. “We quickly started seeing men and women across the lifespan, and sports injuries,” Young says. “People want the one-on-one, patient-centered physical therapy we provide.”
Young says about half her patients come to her for treatment of pelvic health, while the remaining seek general physical therapy.
Her PT skills include dry needling, a treatment typically used in the management of a variety of neuromusculoskeletal pain conditions. She has earned a Functional Dry Needling Level 2 certification, and includes the technique among the services offered at Elevate Wellness.
“Unlike acupuncture, dry needling is not based in Chinese medicine,” she explains. Dry needling employs monofilament needles to address specific muscles and nerve dysfunction. Intramuscular electrical stimulation can be added to reset those muscles and nerves to reduce pain and decrease excessive muscle tone, she says.
Prior to opening Elevate Wellness, Young moved to McCook with her husband, Jeremy, a McCook native, and their 9-year-old son and triplets, age 6.
She has worked with the consultants at the Nebraska Business Development Center (NBDC) office in North Platte on a variety of issues, including an updated business plan to help prepare for expansion.
“Being a healthcare provider, I learned nothing in school about owning my own business,” she says. “I had a vision, and they helped fill in the blanks how to get there, both short term and long term.”
She says Elevate Wellness will continue to add staff, space and services – through collaborative contracts with a nurse practitioner, physician assistant, chiropractor, speech therapist and personal trainer – to meet the diverse needs of a growing list of patients.
Young says the personalized physical therapy services in particular are intended to heal patients and help reduce the need for “hands-off” treatments like ultrasound and hot packs, as well as potentially addictive opioids and other prescription pain medications.
“We have an exercise-based philosophy to get the body moving correctly,” she says. “These techniques, along with the relationships we build, are providing our patients hope they can truly overcome pain and live the lives they desire.”