Advanced Degrees Rooted in Clinical Practice & Scientific Research
The Department of Physical Therapy and Athletic Training provides opportunities for collaboration in education, research, and clinical practice across the disciplines of physical therapy, athletic training, and sports medicine.
We offer advanced degrees in Athletic Training, Physical Therapy (DPT), and Rehabilitation Science (PhD) that are nationally certified and the next step on your way to a career in Physical Therapy and Athletic Training.
Department Stories
PROTECTING MUSCLES TO SPEED THEIR RECOVERY
A medication might help older adults recover from debilitating muscle injuries and age-related muscle loss.
As we get older, it can be harder to bounce back from injury or prolonged periods of bed rest. That’s partly because it takes older adults longer to rebuild muscles that have atrophied due to disuse. The resulting weakness can limit mobility and put people at risk for falls, hospitalization, and even chronic disease. Encouragingly, it may be possible to protect older adults against muscle loss with a drug that millions of people already take.
That drug, metformin, helps to control blood sugar. Commonly used to treat diabetes, it also changes the behavior of cells that can influence muscle regeneration and growth. When Micah Drummond, PhD, professor of physical therapy and athletic training, and colleagues gave metformin to people over the age of 60 before and during a five-day period of bed rest, those individuals experienced less muscle atrophy than people who spent the same five days in bed but took only a placebo. Participants’ muscles after bed rest also had less fibrosis—a hardening of the tissue that can interfere with function—when they took metformin. Drummond and his colleagues think that’s because metformin limits senescence, a state in which cells tend to secrete factors that promote inflammation.
“As you get older, it becomes harder for your body to clear senescent cells, and they accumulate,” he explains. “That’s one reason recovery is much slower for the elderly after periods of disuse.” Drummond and his team are excited about the prospect of deploying metformin, a drug that is considered inexpensive and safe, to get people back on their feet faster.