For PTs, OTs, and movement professionals
You know that handful of patients on your caseload who never seem to get better?
It’s not your fault, and it’s also not theirs. They may have an underlying condition that we were never taught to see.
A free live webinar with Julie Griffis, PT, on hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and how to recognize it in your patients.
Thursday, January 14, 2027. 6:00 pm Central, 7:00 pm Eastern, 4:00 pm Pacific. Live on Zoom, about an hour. Can’t make it live? The recording goes to everyone who registers.
You are registered. The Zoom link is on its way to your inbox.
You know which patients we’re talking about
You can see their names on tomorrow’s schedule.
You gave her the program that works for everyone else, and she came back worse. You backed it off, and she came back worse. She cancels every other visit with a migraine, or because she just doesn’t feel well. Two other therapists in your clinic have had a turn, and they don’t know either. She’s an enigma, and the notes say what notes always say. Difficult. Not doing the exercises.
You’re busy, your schedule is crammed, and you’re behind on your paperwork. You still don’t want to discharge her or give up on her.
So you start to wonder if it’s you. Some days you start to wonder if it’s her.
It’s neither. You’re a good clinician, and I know you want to help her. I’m a clinician too, and I get it. We sat through the same education. We weren’t given this information, and these patients exist.
A patient you already have
A teaching case, built from the patterns I see every week. Not a real person.
She is thirty-four. The referral says neck and low back pain. Her chart says fibromyalgia and anxiety. She has been discharged twice for not making progress, and both times the blame landed on her.
Ten minutes on the upright bike puts her in bed for two days. Standing exercises leave her lightheaded and foggy. Her joints have always bent further than everyone else’s, and nobody has ever asked her about it.
Look at what her plan of care was missing.
Nobody screened her for joint hypermobility. Nobody asked what happens the day after a session, or the day after that. Nobody took her heart rate lying down and again after she stands. Every exercise she was given was upright, loaded, and progressed on a schedule.
None of us were taught to look.
Her plan started her at level five. Her body needed someone to go all the way back down to the foundation and build her up from there.
Change those things and the plan changes. She starts lying down or reclined, and moves upright over time. The dose gets smaller, and you judge it by the next two days, because the cost of a session can arrive 12 to 48 hours later and last for days or weeks. She trains her sense of where her joints are in space, right alongside her strength.
She still lives in a complicated body. This is not a cure. It’s the difference between a plan that keeps hurting her and a plan her body can keep.
You are the first one who can catch this
You are a musculoskeletal and movement specialist. You see her week after week, hands on. That makes you the first line of defense: the clinician best placed to notice that something else is going on, to keep her safe in your clinic, and to know when she needs further assessment.
You can only catch what you were taught to see. It has names.
Joint hypermobility. Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (hEDS). Hypermobility spectrum disorder (HSD). Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS). Myalgic encephalomyelitis/
In my practice, they usually arrive together in the same person. Fibromyalgia overlaps heavily with joint hypermobility, and the researchers who study both recommend checking for one when you see the other.
Start with one free hour
On Thursday, January 14, I’m teaching a free live hour for clinicians: what defines this condition, how to screen the patient you’re thinking about right now, and what it changes in your clinic.
You don’t need to know anything about these conditions to come. You need one patient in mind.
Why I teach this
I’m Julie Griffis, PT. I’ve been a physical therapist for twenty-seven years.
I am also this patient. I live with POTS, hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and ME/CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome). When I was diagnosed, I had the most intimate of motivations to learn everything I could, and I did. Then I started my own practice to be the practice, and the clinician, I wish I’d had fifteen years ago. Today I’m an expert in working with patients who have these conditions, and I’ve built my whole practice around them.
There is one of me, in a body with limits. I can’t see enough patients one at a time to make sure everyone gets the care they deserve. They are falling through the cracks in good clinics, with good clinicians, every day.
You can reach them. So my work now is supporting you: to recognize who they are, to treat them safely, and to know when to send someone for testing or care that isn’t yours to give.
Support that fits a real clinic
A forty-hour certification is a real commitment, and most working clinicians can’t drop everything for one. A busy clinic needs something else: a place to bring the patient in front of you and leave with something to try this week.
That’s The Hypermobility Clinician Collective, my monthly membership for clinicians.
You bring a case, with nothing that identifies the patient: someone who has one of these conditions, someone you suspect, or someone who is just not progressing. I tell you what I see, what I’d check, what I’d do first, what I’d skip, and when I’d refer. You go apply it. If your patient is still struggling, you bring the case back and we work it again. You learn this one real patient at a time.
You won’t leave certified, and you won’t leave an expert. You’ll leave able to recognize a patient who has one of these conditions, to care for that patient safely, and to know what is yours to handle and what is not. That keeps your patient safe, and it keeps you safe.
Everyone who registers for the webinar hears when it opens.
Questions clinicians ask
Do I need to know anything about EDS or hypermobility first?
No. The webinar starts from the beginning.
Is there continuing education credit?
No. This is one free hour of practical teaching.
What if I can’t make it live?
Register anyway. The recording goes to everyone who registers.
Do I have to join the membership?
No. The webinar stands alone. You hear when it opens, and the choice is yours.
Her name is still on tomorrow’s schedule. You went to school to help people feel better and have a better quality of life, and nobody handed you what she needs. That’s not on you, and it’s not on her. I’m here to support you.
It all starts Thursday, January 14, with a free webinar on what defines this condition and how to recognize it.
This is education and mentorship for clinicians. It is not medical advice or patient care, and it does not create a treatment relationship between me and any patient discussed. You use your own clinical judgment, and the decisions about your patient’s care are yours.