Local physical therapist serves as guest on national show's panel

For Whitefish manual physical therapist Ralph Simpson, being invited to a guest panel on a Public Broadcasting Service medical show called “Second Opinion,” was an honor.

But for Simpson, 56, it wasn’t exactly out of his wheelhouse.

Simpson, who has practiced at his Manual Orthopedic Sports Therapy in Whitefish for 11 years, formerly traveled the world delivering care to athletes — particularly their knees.

“I did service for the Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle,” he said. “And I traveled with the PGA tour for 10 years. It was fun.”

Working with ballerinas, golfers and the American luge team through two Olympics, Simpson worked his way into the top echelon of his field.

That’s why, when the Seattle-based producer of “Second Opinion” asked a former colleague of Simpson’s at the ballet about a knee replacement expert, the producer came calling to Whitefish.

“I’ve had my own knee replaced and he thought I’d be a good source,” Simpson said. “So we flew to Rochester, New York, to film the show.”

The large studio was a treat not only for Simpson, but also for his 11-year-old daughter who went with him. He was part of a panel including an orthopedic surgeon, general practicing internist and the moderator, another doctor.

“How the show worked is they brought in a real patient with an issue with an orthopedic knee,” he said. “The moderator presents the patient’s case to the panel and they try to problem-solve.”

In the half-hour program, which aired in late November 2014, the doctors ultimately came to the conclusion the man should have had a knee replacement a few years before.

And then the experience was over. A half-hour PBS show doesn’t take all that long to film.

For Simpson, who was raised in Big Sandy (”the home of Jeff Ament of Pearl Jam, Senator Jon Tester ... and me,” he said.), filming the show was fun but not what he loves to do.

He runs Manual Orthopedics Sports Therapy out of a remodeled farmhouse on Spokane Avenue just south of downtown Whitefish, seeing patients of many stripes.

“I see a lot of athletes, but we get a wide cross-section of people recovering from injuries,” Simpson said. “Almost all of them are athletic in some sense. That could be skiers or golfers or very often both. People prebook me for the summer for training. I’m already half-booked this summer.”

A manual physical therapist specializes in joints and joint movement. Simpson is the therapist who gets a person with a replacement knee back up and moving again.

“One of the most important things to build back is thigh strength,” he said. “It is important that we get that thigh muscle advancing rapidly. Twelve weeks is the timeline. If it’s not back by then, it could be two years until it is fully back to normal.”

To accomplish the rebuilding after joint replacements, Simpson purchased several expensive gadgets to fortify his own skill as a doctor. One of these is a class IV laser, a $25,000 piece of equipment which uses laser energy to reduce pain and inflammation and assist speedy recovery from acute and chronic conditions. The machine is regularly used in professional and collegiate sports.

Another machine, called an Eccentron, helps patients perform eccentric contractions to build up that leg strength. An eccentric contraction is one which lengthens the muscle, as opposed to a concentric contraction, which shortens it.

“The strength used when walking downstairs and upstairs feels different,” Simpson said. “This device retrains muscles to use that strength. Eccentric contractions can build muscle torque with very low joint stress. I actually have arthritic knees so I thought the Eccentron would be a good purchase no matter what.”

Much of his professional clientele of golfers was served well during his years of helping the knees of Greg Norman, Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus on the PGA Tour. But his busiest times were during pro-am events, when celebrities such as Clint Eastwood and Joe Pesci would come to him for assistance with their knees.

While he gave up the globe-trotting world of the PGA and the American luge team (which saw a grisly accident involving the loss of German coach Sepp Lenz’s leg in 1993) he settled down to his practice in Whitefish.

To watch the Second Opinion episode with Simpson, visit http://www.secondopinion-tv.org/episode/knee-replacement. His practice’s website is www.4most.us.

Reporter Ryan Murray may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at rmurray@dailyinterlake.com.