APTA Launches #ChoosePT Opioids Campaign

All,

Just received email from APTA promoting a new campaign to position PT as a safe and effective intervention for chronic pain instead of opioids.

In case you do not get emails from APTA or follow through social media, I am forwarding the email below.

I deal with chronic pain on a daily basis and it is an uphill battle of course but we have the best measures conservatively to help our patients with minimum to no use of prescription medication. Continue to aim high!

Harrison N. Vaughan, PT, DPT, OCS, Dip. Osteopractic, FAAOMPT

via www.painandspinespecialist.com

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Hi, all:

Today, APTA launched a campaign called #ChoosePT to position physical therapists as a safe and effective alternative to prescription opioids for long-term pain management. For the past six months, we’ve been planning the campaign, which includes elements of paid, earned, social and owned media. Here is a link to the press release, http://prn.to/1X72HPe.

While APTA will initially focus outreach in states where the CDC has identified high abuse and opioid prescribing trends, this is a nationwide effort to position PT as part of the solution. Coincidentally, opioids have taken a tremendous toll on families and communities in Tennessee, so we strategically chose to launch the campaign in Nashville, while we’re in town for NEXT Conference and Expo. We’ve placed four outdoor billboards in high traffic areas on I-40 going into and out of Nashville and they will be up through July 6. The Country Music Festival and Bonnaroo attracts hundreds of thousands to this area during this time.

Other elements of the campaign include a print PSA distributed nationally to small community newspapers, a national digital ad buy targeting websites where consumers are searching for health information, a professionally produced and nationally distributed television and radio PSA, social media promotion and engagement, and targeted media relations outreach to reporters covering the opioid epidemic. We will be working with chapters and sections to generate local support for the campaign, specifically during Pain Awareness Month in September and National Physical Therapy Month in October.

Please consider supporting this campaign by tweeting and blogging about how PTs treat pain through movement and the importance of patients and health care providers discussing and choosing safer alternatives, including physical therapy.

#ChoosePT is both a theme and call-to-action and will be a central part of our consumer campaigns going forward. Here is a link to the landing page, featuring patient tools and resources,www.MoveForwardPT.com/ChoosePT.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you,

Erin Wendel-Ritter, APR
Senior Media Relations Specialist
American Physical Therapy Association (APTA)
erinwendel@apta.org
Phone: 703/706-3397
Fax: 703/684-7343
Web: www.MoveForwardPT.com

Interested in live cases where I apply this approach and integrate it with pain science, manual therapy, repeated motions, IASTM, with emphasis on patient education? Check out Modern Manual Therapy!

Keeping it Eclectic...