Clinical specialist at Spalding Cape Cod in Sandwich, Karen Messier-Funk, will be speaking on the topic of “Fitness for Writers and Artists”, sponsored by the Literary Arts Group of the Sandwich Arts Alliance on Saturday, March 21st from 1-3 pm at the SAA Center, 124 Route 6A, Sandwich. Tickets ($5 members/10 non-members) are available at the SAA Center at 124 Route 6A, Sandwich and online at www.sandwichartsalliance.org.

Messier-Funk, MSPT, DPT, specializes in cervical and lumbar pathology as well as headaches. During her more than 25-year career she has determined that posture plays a key role in the development of certain pain profiles and can explain what can be done to curtail it. She trained under Angelo DiMaggio, CEO and Founder of the American Back Pain Center, and is certified in Strategic Orthopedics.

Messier-Funk maintains that fitness is vitally important for everyone, including writers and artists, whose relatively sedentary work habits put them at risk for physical issues; writers and artists can become so engrossed in their work that posture takes a secondary role.

According to Messier-Funk there is a price to pay for poor fitness and that price is pain, pain which especially in recent years originates from inactivity due to increased time on computers, phones and other devices. “The body will compensate for a while,” she states, “allowing one to ignore pain, but by the time the body stops compensating the problem has usually become a bigger issue.“

A physical therapist for 28 years, seeing more than 30 patients a week, Messier-Funk notes that two patients with complaints of back pain can have the same mechanism of injury but require two different treatments to correct the problem: “Treating a such a wide variety of people at Spalding provides me with insight from their jobs and lives that helps me treat other people in the future.”

Messier-Funk explains that trying to convince someone that fitness and posture are the keys to controlling and preventing pain is not always easy. “With all the information and misinformation online,” she tells us, “people have preconceived notions about what causes their pain and many times the information is incorrect. Another factor is convincing the patient the necessity of being consistent with the exercises provided to see results, and not starting off too fast thus neglecting to systematically build up a tolerance.”

The Sandwich Arts Alliance is proud to offer a discussion on this topic for writers and artists.