farragutpress

Innovative technology helping patients ‘Thrive’

August 27, 2025 by Tammy Cheek

Thrive Physical Therapy in Farragut is using innovative technology to make patients’ healing more effective.

Clinicians at Thrive, 153 Brooklawn St., Suite 153, treat a multitude of conditions, such as back and neck pain, orthopedic and sports injuries, concussions, temporamandibular joint (TMJ) disorders, peripheral neuropathy and issues related to balance and fall prevention.

“One of the things we focus on here is the continuity of care,” Thrive business development representative Brandon Hurst said. “How we ensure that our patients are taken care of and are seeing the same clinicians when they come in to get their treatment because the reality is most people don’t look forward to coming to physical therapy.

“We’re pushing people,” he said. “We’re trying to help people get better. Sometimes that means their muscles aren’t as strong as they need to be so we need to get them stronger.

“A lot of the times it means they’re not as flexible as they need to be so we help them get more flexible,” Hurst said. “We find that the flexibility and the strength are really two of the major components of physical therapy.

“So, we have a variety of techniques to help improve the range of motion, the strengthening,” he said. “A couple of the things that was not around, when I (had) physical therapy, that’s now a standard operating procedure or a part of care is called dry needling and Class 4 laser therapy.”

Although dry needling sounds painful, Hurst said the needles are so tiny that you don’t feel them.

He watched the clinicians use dry needling on people who have TMJ, a condition affecting the complex joints on each side of the face connecting the lower jaw to the skull, allowing a person to talk, chew and yawn.

“A lot of oral surgeons and dentists, especially in the Knoxville area, will refer out for physical therapy for someone who has TMD or TMJ,” Hurst said. “Their jaws are not opening properly.

“Part of that treatment protocol is to help loosen up the muscles so your jaw can open,” Hurst said. “One of the main ways to do that is through dry needling. What happens is when you insert that needle and send a signal, it disrupts the brain, telling the muscle to fire, and it disrupts it enough to release (the muscle), so the muscle relaxes.”

Regarding another condition the clinic treats, neuropathy, the clinicians have created a program using Class 4 laser therapy.

“It’s not offered by all physical therapists,” Hurst said. “It is an investment.”

Gregory Vess, physical therapy assistant at the Thrive location in Farragut that

recently won a farragutpress Readers’ Choice Award, wrote, researched and developed

the program to treat neuropathy.

“We’re doing more research on it,” Vess said. It’s becoming more popular so we’re getting more studies.

“(The Class 4 laser is the most powerful laser you can purchase on the market right now,” he said.

Hurst said laser therapy increases the speed of the healing process.

“It would target inflammation; it would target wounds to help a wound heal quicker,” he added.

“It has programs that are embedded in it,” Vess said about the laser. “One of those is the peripheral neuropathy program.

“It’s new,” clinic manager Joseph Smith said about the program. “We have, probably, the most comprehensive program definitely in the area, I’d say in the Southeast, if not in the country.

“We’ve worked really, really hard on the science and trying to figure out how to best help each patient,” he said. “Greg was the one that kind of created the program for us, so were really super proud of the program.”

Peripheral neuropathy, most often caused by numerous conditions but most commonly diabetes, exposure to cancer treatments, excessive alcohol use and Agent Orange, causes burning or numbness, tingling and intense pain in their hands and feet, Vess explained.

“Basically, your nerve endings, deep down in your feet and your hands, will start to degenerate and causes a lot of pain,” he said.

Hurst observed people suffering from peripheral neuropathy “tend to lose hope that the symptoms will improve, so they kind of settle for ‘this is just my life now.’”

Often, “That’s the message they receive from their physician,” Vess added. “These patients are losing their quality of life.”’

However, the Class 4 laser program, along with vitamin B supplements, can improve the condition by slowing down or stopping the progression of the disease and treat the symptoms “so that the patients can have a better functioning life,” he said.

Thrive Physical Therapy’s Farragut clinic is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday and closed Saturday and Sunday.

For more information or to book an appointment, call 865-412-2347.