This spring we were lucky to have an intern from Prairie Ridge High School, Jena Berkland. This rock star student spent 5 weeks learning about physical therapy with a special focus on running-related injuries and concussion prevention. Jena is headed to Concordia University in St. Paul, MN where she
is playing soccer and hopes to attend physical therapy school after completing her undergraduate degree in Exercise Science. Read below to learn what Jena experienced in her time with Dana and Denise:

As a High School Senior, major decisions were coming up fast—one of which being my intended career. Choosing what I was going to do for the rest of my life. For a while I was pretty sure that I wanted to be a physical therapist, but how would I know for sure? The career internship class provided at Prairie Ridge High School allowed me to get into contact with Denise Smith of Smith Physical Therapy & Running Academy where I ended up spending the last semester of my senior year exploring the wonders of physical therapy and enjoying my time with Denise and Dana. Not only did they help instill in me the confidence that physical therapy was for me, but they also taught me a lot about injury prevention—something that pertains to myself as a full time athlete who has had my fair share of injuries.

I have been playing soccer since I was 4 years old, and in my years of playing soccer I have experienced and seen other teammates experience injuries such as shin splints, tendonitis, plantar fasciitis, and so much more. Denise proposed to me something I had never really thought about: how many of these injuries could be due to running form? In my time with Denise, I saw plenty of athletes like myself, who came to her with an injury and left feeling a lot better simply because of Denise’s running form coaching. A report from The American Journal of Sports Medicine concluded that the occurrence of injury is 62% lower after 2 weeks of running gait modification (running form). This was one report among many that supported the idea that improving running form helps prevent injuries. In all my years of playing competitive soccer, this idea had never been proposed, yet, nothing has ever made more sense to me.

My mind continued to be blown away as I learned the measures Dana has been taking to help prevent concussions. I know what you’re thinking, people can’t really prevent concussions, can they? That’s what I thought until Dana taught me that concussion prevention means educating people about concussion awareness and installing concussion baseline testing to prevent minor concussions from turning into something bigger. Before meeting Dana, I was the type of athlete who would continue to play even if I had slight signs of having a concussion. However after spending time with Dana, my outlook has taken a huge turn. According to the Brain Injury Research Institute, an estimated 1.6-3.8 million sports- and recreation-related concussions occur in the United States each year. For males, the leading cause of high school sports concussion is football; for females the leading cause of high school sports concussion is soccer. Too many people, especially young athletes, fail to realize the danger of concussions and fail to take the precautions necessary to prevent serious damage. Dana has taken great steps to help make a change in this aspect—something that has been very eye opening to me.

Thank you!

-Jena Berkland