“We have 11 staff members, and it’s a mix of part time and full time, but all of our treating therapists are full time,” Ogren said. “We’ve been emerging slowly and we have regained our footing with patients, but we are not a high-volume practice.”Īt Synergy, the goal is to ensure that each therapist has enough time per patient, Ogren said. They were needing it because they were canceling elective surgeries for total hip and knee replacements, so these people had no real options,” Ogren said. “The only patients we saw in 2020 were people who really couldn’t avoid care. Growth has been steady since the first location opened, but everyone sat tight during the pandemic in 2020, Ogren said. “Sometimes we do collaborate with their physicians, OBGYNs or surgeons to recommend some further diagnostic imaging, but in many cases, the reason people come to us is because they’re trying to avoid high-cost MRIs or surgical intervention,” Ogren said. It’s important for the staff at Synergy to have long conversations about individualized experiences with patients’ injury and then allow that to develop a treatment plan, Ogren said. “We’re relying on hard, cold evidence, which we know that the field has established as a standard of care.” While we use standardized treatment, which is evidence-based, we’re not just using anecdotally what we think works,” Ogren said. “We are not a practice that relies on cookie-cutter approaches.
Gerbic is also a patient doing pelvic therapy during her second trimester of pregnancy. Cara Ogren, owner of Synergy Physical Therapy, physical therapist and reiki master, works with Colleen Gerbic, a physical therapy assistant at Synergy. Patients can also expect an individualized physical therapy assessment at Synergy’s locations, Ogren said. “It’s key that our patients learn how to become their own therapist at home,” Ogren said. Additionally, all offices have multiple, individual treatment rooms for privacy and a common treatment space with minimal exercise equipment. All rooms have dimmer switches to alter the lighting for patients. The one thing that is different about Synergy is that when patients walk in, it does not feel like a gym or a medical office, but rather a mix between a massage therapy experience and spa-like setting, Ogren said.Įach office has a massage therapy room. Willoughby Hills ended up being the right fit for the clinic and it’s been wonderful being here,” Ogren said. “It took a little bit of time to find the right community to start here in Lake County. Two and a half years ago, Ogren opened the doors to her at 35010 Chardon Road, Suite 100, in Willoughby Hills.
The plan to open a third location between the two followed. Organically, the foot traffic at the Ashtabula location led to the opening of a second location in Berea, at 201 Front St., Suite 104. “It was really nice to have that option for women who were experiencing incontinence, hip pain that was coming from a pelvic injury or prenatal physical therapy needs,” Ogren said. It was at that time Synergy was beginnings to take shape. Ogren, an Ashtabula County native, gained extensive experience in orthopedic physical therapy moving across the country.Īfter relocating back to Ohio in 2007, Ogren finished her clinical doctorate degree at Daemen College in New York. That seemed like the coolest profession in the world and then it turns out, for me, it is the coolest.” I wanted to help women stand on their own two feet, sit up straight and have more independence. “As a 7-year-old, I was like ‘this is the coolest job in the world,'” Ogren said.
Synergy, which has offices in Ashtabula, Berea and Willoughby Hills, offers physical therapy treatments with a holistic approach, as well as reiki, athletic training, wellness classes and the holistic treatment of women. “(My grandmother) and I were like Velcro when I was young, so when she needed physical therapy, she had a really cool physical therapist that showed me what she was doing,” said Ogren, who has been the owner of Synergy Physical Therapy and Synergy Wellness Services since 2008. Cara Ogren saw what physical therapists do through a family member’s treatment.