Americans today live 11 years longer, on average, than we did in 1950, and benefit from earlier detection and treatment of chronic conditions. As a result, the field of physical therapy is as vital as ever.
The beating heart of Sargent’s physical therapy department is its chair, Terry Ellis. Ellis (MED’05) got her start as a physical therapist in 1988, and for more than 30 years has helped her patients maintain or regain their mobility and quality of life—especially those with neurological conditions. Ellis joined the Sargent faculty in 1995, where her research has focused on how exercise and rehabilitation improve mobility and reduce the progression of disability in individuals with Parkinson’s disease. In 2019, Sargent named Ellis department chair, a role in which she encourages her colleagues, supporting their research—while continuing her own, be it studying the positive effects of exercise after a neurological diagnosis or using music and robotics to improve walking ability in the real world. From labs to classrooms to clinics, the department is a leader in an exciting and growing field of practice.
“We want to move the field of physical therapy forward, we want to lead that movement, and we’re doing that in many different ways,” she says.
Ellis spoke with Inside Sargent about her research, how she approaches her leadership role, and why she believes the department’s best days are ahead of it.
Inside Sargent: Your research really runs the gamut, from the positive effects of exercise on those with chronic illness, to using exosuits in rehabilitation, to digital therapeutics, and more. What is most exciting for you right now?
Terry Ellis: I’m very passionate about helping people with chronic neurological conditions. The approach I take to doing that is multifaceted, coming at it from multiple directions to try to optimize the outcomes. People with Parkinson’s disease and stroke, they live and they live a lot longer. Rehab becomes more and more important as we have more and more people in our population living with conditions, and living decades.
One of the most exciting things we’re working on now are these exosuit projects. Lou Awad is leading this work in stroke. In Parkinson’s, there’s something called “freezing of gait.” This is a problem with walking in which people with Parkinson’s either can’t initiate walking, or they stop walking, or they have difficulty turning, because their feet shuffle and get stuck to the floor. We have a gentleman in his 60s with Parkinson’s who came in to see us over the last couple months, who basically cannot walk. So, we tried these soft exosuits, these robotics, which are wearable. It’s made out of fabric that you put on, the legs in this case, and there’s a motor around your waist, and cables that pull joints in certain directions, based on what we’re after. We have brought this person in several times, and when we activate the suit, we can prevent that freezing from coming on. So, there’s some initial promising results that are actually quite profound, suggesting that we might be able to use this technology in the rehab space to try to overcome a major problem that doesn’t have any other treatments.
What does being chair entail, compared to professor, researcher, clinician?
Much of my time over the last two years has been spent figuring out how to keep our programs going in the face of a pandemic. With social distancing and all the requirements that were put in place, we had to establish a real innovative way to deliver our program and still provide the education that our students need to become great physical therapists.
But besides that, I see myself as the person who is steering the ship. One of my favorite parts of the job is to help other faculty reach their goals and help them be successful in what they aspire to, whether that’s advancement in their rank, advancement in the work they’re doing, starting a new project, or innovating something that will help move the field forward. I’ve been here for many years, and I’ve felt a lot of support from the faculty over the years, so I feel like it’s my turn to step up, to continue to bring the department together, and to help us advance as individuals and as a group.
We’ve also spent a lot of time over the last year and a half or so reviewing our curriculum. We know we have a great curriculum. But that’s not good enough. Healthcare is changing rapidly. Are we preparing ourselves for the future? When our students graduate in a few years, where are they going to be? We want to be on the forefront of producing leaders in our field who are going to be the innovators and people leading the charge as healthcare continues to evolve. We have to be ahead of the curve.
What are some of the curriculum changes you’re anticipating, in light of how the field of PT is changing?
The field is moving toward “value-based care”—what is the value we bring, how do we optimize that value, and how do we demonstrate that to the patient and the third-party payers? Boston University is obviously putting a lot of emphasis on big data, with data science faculty being hired and the [Center for Computing & Data Sciences] coming up, so we are eager to collaborate with the data science faculty in the healthcare sphere, and particularly in rehabilitation. Using their skills in machine learning and AI, and our expertise in healthcare data, we can answer the big questions in the field in order to then elevate practice and outcomes.
We spend a lot more time in our courses now talking about the social determinants of health and population-based practice. In physical therapy, you treat one individual at a time. But I think we’re at a time where we need to think about how we can help people from underserved communities access healthcare in the same way as others.
What are you most excited about as you look to the future of this department?
We’re really growing our research agenda.
We’re bringing in these talented faculty this fall. The growth and our impact in terms of research in the rehab field is going to be even greater as we leverage the incredible talent that we have among our faculty as we help them grow and get tenured and evolve their work. I’m also excited about our clinical faculty and their growth and achievements. I really think they are going to be even better positioned and better able to move their scholarship forward as we invest in them, their ideas, and their growth and development over the next several years.
We also have amazing students. They’re very invested, they’re great to work with, and we have high expectations of them when they graduate. I see many of our students as the future leaders of the field, and we’re really trying to prepare them in that way.
You have a big job. How do you balance it all?
I do have a great infrastructure in my research because I have built it over the years. I can rely on a strong team to carry out the day-to-day aspects of the research that need to be accomplished, so that helps a great deal. I also have an amazingly talented, successful faculty. You’re really taking a strong group and making them even stronger. That’s a good place to be. It is a challenge to juggle it all, but I’m invested in this, so that helps you give your all.