Staff
Linda Ritter, APRN, NP-C
Linda Ritter APRN NP-C
Linda Ritter, APRN, NP-C with more than 20 years of experience in nursing, 15 years in critical care in New York, earning certifications from The American Association of Critical Care Nurses (CCRN), 3+ years as a Certified Case Manager from The Commission of Case Manager Certification (CCM). Her education includes achieving a Master of Science in Nursing, from the #5 school for nurse practitioners in the country at the time, The University of Cincinnati. She is a board-certified Nurse Practitioner in Adult Primary Care from the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners, who after 3000 clinical hours under a supervising physician, possesses an autonomous license to practice. Additionally, she has earned multiple certificates approved by The American Association of Nurse Practitioners, for ultrasound and advanced injection training for joint injections. Regenerative Medicine.
Sarah Hennessy
Sarah Hennessy
Sarah, with 10 plus years in the medical field, is our office administrator. She enjoys serving her community and improving the quality of our patients’ lives. She has extensive experience in Primary Care in New York before moving to Florida.
Sarah is from Long Island, New York and moved to Florida in 2016 to be closer to her parents. She has a 10-year-old son who plays hockey and travels all over the state of Florida from rink to rink to compete.
Regenerative Medicine
Regenerative medicine is a process of using functional tissues to repair tissue that is lost due to age, disease or damage(trauma). Giving patients a realistic picture of what is expected from regenerative medicine treatment for orthopedic conditions is of utmost importance. We want our patients to understand that regenerative medicine treatment is not always a cure or substitute for needed surgery. We believe in some instances that patients with examples of severe knee arthritis and full thickness tears of rotator cuffs (complete shoulder tears not partial tears) are better served with surgery. Patients who aren’t good candidates for knee replacements and haven’t responded to physical therapy or to steroid or hyaluronic acid injections, may benefit from autologous platelet rich plasma (PRP) treatment(s). To determine if you are a candidate for regenerative therapy (PRP), schedule an appointment with us today. Educated patients are better able to make decisions that are right for them and their orthopedic conditions.
Study Conclusions:
PRP seems to have long-term benefits as well. A recent meta-analysis by Campbell et al. found that the use of PRP led to significant improvements in patient outcomes at 6 months after injection and were maintained for up to 12 months. Improvements were seen starting at 2 months. Campbell KA, Saltzman BM, Mascarenhas R, Khair MM, Verma NN, et al. (2015) Does Intra-articular Platelet-Rich Plasma Injection Provide Clinically Superior Outcomes Compared With Other Therapies in the Treatment of Knee Osteoarthritis? A Systematic Review of Overlapping Meta-analyses. Arthroscopy 31: 2213-2221.
In a prospective double-blinded randomized trial it was found that patients receiving PRP experienced all around improvements in WOMAC scores (pain, stiffness, physical function, and total score) compared to control (whose WOMAC scores deteriorated from baseline). Patel S, Dhillon MS, Aggarwal S, Marwaha N, Jain A, et al. (2013) Treatment with platelet-rich plasma is more effective than placebo for knee osteoarthritis: a prospective, double-blind, randomized trial. Am J Sports Med 41: 356-364.
In a randomized controlled trial comparing PRP to hyaluronic acid, WOMAC pain score and bodily pain improved in both groups. However, PRP treatment was significantly more efficacious, showing an improvement in WOMAC score from 39.5 at baseline to 18.44 at week 52 (a change of 21.11). Hyaluronic acid went from a score of 28.69 at baseline to 27.46 (a change of 1.22) Raeissadat SA, Rayegani SM, Hassanabadi H, Fathi M, Ghorbani E, et al. (2015) Knee Osteoarthritis Injection Choices: Platelet- Rich Plasma (PRP) Versus Hyaluronic Acid (A one-year randomized clinical trial). Clin Med Insights Arthritis Musculoskelet Disord 8: 1-8.
