The folks at Hamilton Physical Therapy Services feel like they can treat just about any injury imaginable.
The five-facility therapy center offers several specialty programs and rehabilitations in addition to traditional orthopedic therapies.
Partner Mark Laurinaitis said the practice’s patients range from newborn babies who lack range of motion to elderly men and women who have trouble staying balanced.
“You also get your teenagers who play three hours of sports a day with three different teams who just get overuse injuries,” he said. “We get our ‘weekend warriors,’ the people who work during the week and then go out there and try to play, and then they can’t move for the rest of the week. We’ll see people who get hurt on the job. Everybody’s different depending on what they want to do. It’s challenging, but it’s fun and it’s rewarding.”
The practice was established in Hamilton in 1979 by four partners. Eight years ago, it opened an office in Ewing. Three years later, the Robbinsville location opened, and three and a half years after that, the Lawrenceville facility opened. The center also has an office on the Princeton University campus that serves University students and staff only.
The facilities have grown not only in size since 1979 but also in terms of the specialty services they offer. Among these services are cancer care, women’s health, and vestibular rehabilitation, which helps patients who suffer from dizzy spells and balance issues.
“We have specialty programs that a lot of our staff pride themselves on,” Laurinaitis said. “They continue to do a lot of education for themselves to help the community, and that improves the outcome for the patient.”
Laurinaitis, who started with HPTS 11 years ago as a staff therapist, said that the practice also has a hand center, a running enhancement program and a fall prevention program.
“We’re always trying to come up with new, different niche programs that will help the community.”
About 20 therapists practice between the five facilities. Each is generally set in one building, but Laurinaitis and the two other partners, Scott Giallella and Jaime Caceres, float between the different buildings.
All of the facilities are fairly close in proximity to one another, but Laurinaitis said the company wants the patient to travel as little as possible to receive treatment.
“The reason why we opened five practices in a small area is because we want to make it convenient for the patient,” he said. “If they’re going to need to come two or three times a week for therapy, nobody wants to travel 15 to 20 minutes to get somewhere. Everybody’s busy now.”
Most of the facilities open at 7:30 a.m. and close at 7:30 or 8 p.m., keeping patient commitments like work and school in mind.
Laurinaitis, though, said the hands-on approach is what really sets HPTS apart from other similar practices.
“We can find people’s deficits by using out hands, and that can improve their outcomes,” he said. “Our goal is to educate the patient on their injury, why they got hurt and to prevent them from coming back. We always try to do hands-on and not just an exercise-based or modality-based program. We try to put hands on every patient.”
The Hamilton office of Hamilton Physical Therapy Services is located at 1900 Arena Drive. Phone: (609) 585-2333. On the web: hamiltonphysicaltherapy.org.
Mark Laurinaitis stretches the arm of Hamilton Physical Therapy employee John Kokotajlo. (Staff photo by Samantha Sciarrotta.)
Scott Giallella
