As a classically trained dancer, Catherine accumulated many injuries, which fostered her natural curiosity about how the human body works. At age 12, her physical therapists identified hypermobility as a likely contributor to her frequent aches and pains and introduced her to Pilates to help her find physical stability. She began practicing yoga as a teen when an injury prevented her from dancing. 

At Wake Forest University, she was awarded a scholarship and earned awards for dance performance and choreography. After graduating, she danced professionally for several small dance companies while teaching Pilates and earning a certificate in Personal Training. When she stopped dancing, she expanded her fitness offerings by adding certifications in spinning, yoga, pelvic floor and prenatal exercise.

As the owner and lead instructor and Equability Yoga and Pilates in Forest Park, IL, she refined her skills at teaching groups and coaching/training individuals toward their health goals. She was particularly interested in helping her clients prevent or recover from injuries and after 5 years of running a successful business, she closed the studio in order to pursue a doctorate in physical therapy (DPT.) In PT school, she learned new words for symptoms she had been experiencing her whole life including hypermobility syndrome/hEDS and orthostatic intolerance.

After earning her Doctorate in Physical Therapy in 2010, Catherine worked at several private practices in Chicago, specializing in orthopedic and pelvic health. She was often asked to see clients with chronic symptoms and multiple areas of pain or dysfunction, who didn't have success with a traditional approach to PT. She enjoys the process of a thorough assessment, active listening, and partnering with clients to individualize a plan that meets their needs. Her approach is not limited to one particular technique, as she is happy to use a variety of skills to meet the needs of her clients. This may include narrative medicine, journaling, meditation/visualization, breathing practices, nutrition, sleep/stress management and cognitive behavioral strategies as well as more traditional PT skills such as motor control, graded exercise, pacing/recovery strategies, manual therapy, joint mobilization and dry needling. Her goal is to find the combination that will best facilitate the body's innate ability to heal itself and leave clients feeling empowered with tools that support their health goals.

Catherine has put her orthopedic, neurologic, and abdominopelvic training, as well as her exercise background to good use in serving those with symptomatic hypermobility, including hypermobility spectrum disorder (HSD), Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (EDS), Osteogenesis Imperfecta, and Loeys Dietz. As she worked with more people with hypermobility, she learned a lot about issues that people with connective tissue disorders commonly face. She discovered that she met the clinical criteria for some of these conditions, like Hypermobile Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (hEDS) and Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS.) Her education and personal experience with these issues has helped her to be an informed and empathetic patient-clinician-researcher. She joined the research team at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) in 2023, where she studies the effects of vagal nerve stimulation in people with hypermobility related issues like chronic pain, fatigue and dysautonomia.

Catherine believes wholeheartedly that injuries/conditions are great teachers-- she learns from her own and those of her patients every day. Each of her various injuries/conditions has enabled her to cultivate compassion for those who struggle with the process of diagnosis, treatment, setbacks and recovery/management. She is profoundly grateful for the opportunity to help people connect to their own resilience and discover their strength.

Catherine's background in teaching group exercise has prepared her to teach in various settings. You may find her teaching anatomy to yoga instructors, volunteering to educate medical professionals on hypermobility related issues, assisting with clinical instruction of DPT students, or presenting a variety of continuing education courses for healthcare professionals across the US. She aims to make the complexities of the human body accessible to all so that they better understand how to support its needs.

 

Do you relate to Catherine’s account of her frequent injuries? Check here to see if you might also be hypermobile:

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Joint-hypermobility/Pages/Diagnosis.aspx

Catherine's CV can be viewed here.