Offering quality health care to improve your overall health and wellness
By Bonnie Adams, Managing Editor
Northborough – As local business owners, husband and wife Kevin and Kim Flaherty of Shrewsbury are committed to ensuring their patients get the best quality health care while also giving back to the community. Although their treatments may seem quite different in practice, the care they provide is helping many to improve their overall health and wellness.
Kevin is a physical therapist and is owner of Flaherty Physical Therapy while Kim co-owns (with business partner Melissa Stein) Open Circle Acupuncture & Healing. During the pandemic, although the two businesses have certainly faced challenges, they have been available for their patients in different ways.
Now that things are slowly easing back into a “new normal,” the couple said that both businesses will be well-equipped to continue to operate in ways that will ensure everyone’s safety while improving the quality of their health and wellness.
Flaherty Physical Therapy has been open for business during the corona crisis and have adjusted their care based on best practice guidelines. They have been providing in clinic treatments as well as virtual Tele-health treatments to stay in touch with their patients.
“Tele-health is a new form of treatment for us. It allows us to perform professional consultations in a way that our patients can feel comfortable,” Kevin said. “It helped us to stay engaged with our patients and track how they are doing when they were not comfortable coming into the clinic. We will continue to offer Tele-health as a part of our therapy and wellness platform in the future.”
Flaherty has also been using Zoom calls for his popular series of free monthly educational workshops.
“This way again, those who are not comfortable venturing out can learn about orthopedic pain issues and how physical therapy can help them treat it,” he said. “June 25 is our low back pain workshop, July 30 will be on neck pain and August 27 will be low back pain again.” (Visit www.flahertyphysicaltherapy.com/workshops for more information and to sign up).
“Every participant leaves with three exercises to work on at home,” he explained.
“We also follow that up with a free half an hour in person screen with one of our therapists.”
Flaherty mentioned how important it was to make sure that his patients handle their limitations. “We try to get everyone to work on their problem sooner versus later so they can get back to restoring their Mojo and improving their quality of life.”
For more information or to schedule an appointment, call 508-393-9000 or visit www.flahertyphysicaltherapy.com.
Kim Flaherty is Open Circle’s Director of Business Operations while Melissa Stein is the Clinical Director and Licensed Acupuncturist and Herbalist.
They use a comprehensive wellness approach using acupuncture, herbs and supplements with a strong emphasis on self-care.
Kim and Melissa have maintained regular office hours during the pandemic to stay in communication with patients and provided curbside pick-up for herbs, supplements and CBD products. They were a valued resource on social media for acupressure points and wellness tips and they now have a video resource library that is now available on their website.
“Over the last two months, we have seen many more patients suffering from stress, anxiety and even depression,” Kim said. “Many people who were coming in for a variety of different health issues, are now also wanting us to address their stress and immune concerns. Acupuncture can treat all of this within each treatment.”
“Acupuncture is an effective way to strengthen your immune system and balance stress levels, which will be especially important as we begin to return to work, school and social gatherings. It regulates immune function and treats the underlying cause of illness by reducing symptoms, speeding up the healing of infection and normalizing the body’s immune response,” she said.
“We can help you keep everyone in your family healthy,” she added. “We treat patients from age 1 up to those in their 90s.”
For children, it will be important to start prepping their immune system in July or August prior to the start of school in the fall.
“No need to worry if they are afraid of ‘needles’,” Kim said. “We have highly effective non-needle acupressure techniques for the kids, as well as herbs and supplements that have a kid-friendly taste.”
Open Circle limits the number of patients that may be in the clinic at a time and are screening patients with temperature checks. They have a hand sanitizer station and are cleaning all surfaces multiple times a day to ensure everyone’s comfort and peace of mind.
For more information call 508-393-1212 or visit www.opencirclehealing.com.
Flaherty Physical Therapy is located at 411 West Main St., #3, in Northborough while Open Circle is located around the back, at #2R.