Kathy Lynch, PT, DPT

Kathy earned her Doctor of Physical Therapy degree from the University of Colorado-Anschutz Medical Campus. The DPT is the doctoral-level clinical degree in physical therapy, which means her training covered examination, differential reasoning, and treatment planning at the depth the profession now requires of entry-level therapists.

She came to physical therapy after a first career in business. Kathy holds a B.S. in Accounting from Nazareth College and an MBA from the University of Notre Dame, and she worked in public accounting and in higher-education business administration before returning to school for her DPT. That background shows up in how she works: she likes problem-solving, and she likes working with people to figure out what is actually going on and what to do about it.

Since finishing her doctorate, Kathy has continued her education in three areas in particular. She has taken coursework covering cervical (neck) injuries, lumbopelvic (low back and pelvis) injuries, and sports injuries. She has also completed training in the Selective Functional Movement Assessment, or SFMA, a structured way of screening how you move through basic patterns so a therapist can tell the difference between a painful joint, a stiff one, and a movement habit that keeps loading the same tissue.

Kathy is a native of Pennsylvania who has made the West Coast, and Oregon, her home.

Kathy sees patients across the range of care offered at the clinic. Her continuing education and her SFMA training make her a good fit if your problem involves your neck, your low back and pelvis, or an injury tied to how you move under load.

• Neck and low back pain. Evaluation of what is driving the symptoms, then a plan that combines hands-on treatment with exercise you can carry out between visits.
• Sports injuries and return to activity. Part of our sports medicine care, including the movement screening side of things for people who keep re-injuring the same area.
• Post-surgical and orthopedic recovery. Structured progressions through our rehabilitation program, built around what you are trying to get back to.

Every evaluation at Encore is one-on-one with a licensed physical therapist, and the plan gets built with you rather than handed to you. You can read more about how our team works on the About page.

Team sports have always been part of Kathy's life. She grew up playing softball, basketball, and soccer, played intercollegiate basketball at Nazareth College of Rochester, and coached at the collegiate level after graduating. She is still an avid basketball fan and fills winter weekends with NCAA games on TV. She is also a college football fan, or as she puts it, a "fanatic," with strong loyalty to the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame.

Since moving to Oregon she has become active outdoors, with hiking and biking taking up a good share of her free time.