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Connecting Health Through Movement
David is a native New Englander and admittedly slightly obsessed with the Boston Marathon. His proactive background in healthcare and wellness began as a Registered Dietitian (RD) and sports nutritionist. In Providence, he worked in clinical and hospital based behavior change research roles as well as in a private practice where he co-founded a corporate fitness center and mobile rehab consulting/contracting service with his spouse. In his corporate health research role David helped deploy one of the very first generation remote monitoring research studies in several manufacturing facilities in southern New England for capturing movement and verifying mobility with motion sensors (a study funded by the National Cancer Institute). In his private practice, David was the first facility on the East Coast to offer accurate and clinically validated mobile metabolic testing. Both these early adopter technology experiences laid the foundation for his interest in the potential for using sensors and biofeedback to help empower patients with actionable insights to gain more control over their own health and recovery. These experiences now fuel his passion for digital-first healthcare technology adoption to improve patient engagement and improve clinical outcomes.
Education
David received both his Bachelor of Science degree in Nutrition & Dietetics (RD) from
the University of Rhode Island as well as his Master of Science in Physical Therapy. He has also recently earned the designation as a Certified Aging in Place Specialist (CAPS).
He is currenlty working on several new projects for 2024 including his Achieve Balance Course and Coaching Academy based on the success of his Amazon best selling book in preventive medicine, Body in
Balance.
David is also secheduled to release his second book later this year. This will be a “chicken soup” type book featuring survivor stories, home stroke recovery tips and podcast interview highlights of international advocacy efforts to connect stroke care into the home. The mission of this new book is to offer a working blueprint to advocate for more
technology enabled solutions and foster the development of a connected ecosystem for improved stroke survivorship outcomes.
Experience
David has 23 years of clinical insight as a physical therapist with diverse experiences in a variety of practice settings including acute care, private
practice, home care as well as with actors and pro athletes as part of his hybrid model
of remote and mobile performance health consulting. Most recently David has expanded his
consultancy services to industry serving in clinical PT lead roles in sport performance,
rehabilitation technology and product development. He recently completed a clinical consultant research role with the University of Rhode Island in their wearable biosensing research lab. As an expert in telehealth and rehab technology he worked on a new product deployment and integration to meet the new remote therapeutic monitoring reimbursement codes. He currently also serves as a guest lecturer and mentor to DPT students in the university's physical therapy department.
Digital Health
David consults as an expert guest presenter for the Digital Medicine Society.
He is a contributor to their common methodologies working group, has led the
representation for the rehabilitation perspective and forum with BioHacking Village and
the Department of Health and Human Services on telehealth, and recently presented at
the IMPACCT mHealth in Clinical Trials 2020 Virtual Conference on Wearables in
Physical Therapy. The replay of his presentation can be accessed here on his
smartmovespt.com website. Finally, during the pandemic David was a contributor to
the Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine (SIDM) Telediagnosis project and recently
completed publication for the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI).
Prior to launching SmartMovesPT, David served as Wellness and Sports Services Director for a community outpatient practice. In this role he led and managed their telehealth strategy during the pandemic with the deployment of SmartMovesPT Telehealth. During this tenure, David also built, tested and validated six self help wellness and pre-habilitation courses and led one remote clinical trial as the Principal Investigator for a privately funded research pilot for a home bilateral training device for stroke recovery.
Advocacy
On the patient advocacy side, as as stroke survivor at age 39, David became a co-
founding member and Vice President of the patient led PFO Research Foundation.
David is currently also a co-founding partner of EnableUs, a community for supporting
life after stroke. David recently launched the Know Stroke Podcast with his EnableUs
co-founder to expand the reach and voice of their stroke community.
As part of this stroke journey David serves at the national level as a stroke spokesperson for the American Heart / Stroke Association and is a PCORI Ambassador and a Stroke Patient Stakeholder in clinical research trials at Tuft’s Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He has also provided patient testimony before the FDA helping to shape future clinical trials to include the patient perspective and improve the patient voice in healthcare outcomes after stroke. David was one of the keynote presenters featured at the 22nd Annual Southern New England Rehabilitation Conference-Advances in Stroke Rehabilitation. David’s presentation entitled, “The Future of Home Stroke Recovery and Prevention: Where will Connected Health Tools Fit?” can be requested by reaching out to him on Linkedin.
David’s Personal Message and Call To Action to All Rehabilitation Professionals:
I was in that original roughly “2%”* of physical therapists using telehealth and digital rehab tools for many
years prior to the start, and exclusively throughout the pandemic. Here’s what I
learned. Digital medicine has revolutionized many sectors of healthcare, but we still don’t know what
that means for the future of physical therapy.
If we are going to realize the forward thinking mission statement of the APTA* to meet the needs of the communities we serve we will need to get out of the building and explore new integrative care delivery options to meet our patients where they want us to be.
*APTA’s Vision Statement : “Transforming society by optimizing movement to improve the human experience, places new responsibility on physical therapists and the profession to assume a leadership role to improve the health of our population. Physical inactivity is a significant risk factor for many chronic diseases and conditions and is an even greater problem for those with limited mobility due to health conditions and other factors. Physical therapists are uniquely qualified to have a significant impact on health and quality of life by serving as a dynamic link between the clinic and the community.”-
Finally, physical therapists
are becoming the first point of care today especially for MSK related ailments and pain. As mobility experts we could offer an integrative rehab solution. Rehab professionals could play a pivotal role in
connecting health through movement and optimizing whole person care. We need to demonstrate our skillset with outcomes and utilizing digital tools will be essential in a modern healthcare delivery model.
Don’t Get Lost-Get Started Today!”
- David Dansereau , MSPT,CAPS
Register for educational courses and connect for consulting or partnership opportunities on your next project:
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