If you are a prospective client’s spouse, child or other family, please read the message below:

With thanks for your understanding, I ask that you please NOT contact me. My long-standing policy is to keep it simple and interact only with my direct clients: I almost always exclude from consideration anyone who doesn’t contact me personally, as experience has shown that 99% of the time, they won’t be able to meet the basic requirements listed below. I recommend that you pass my website information on to your loved one and if they are unwilling/unable to personally follow up with me, then I can’t consider helping them.

PROSPECTIVE CLIENT BASIC REQUIREMENTS

I welcome your consideration as a new client in my practice if you meet the basic requirements outlined below. These requirements are essential to appropriately match my skills with the correct individuals¹ and to have a smooth-running practice. Prospective client basic requirements are as follows with footnote explanations at bottom:

• Have normal cognitive abilities¹
• Are able to walk without assistive devices²
• Are willing to work with me at least once per week for a minimum of 6 months³
• Have scheduling flexibility
• Are willing & able to use email for scheduling and normal communication
• Will sign my Fees & Policies Statement at our first session⁴
• Will wear a proper fitting N-95/KN-95 mask to help prevent respiratory virus transmission⁵

Footnotes:
¹ If you don’t have normal cognitive abilities or can’t walk without assistive devices, then a physical or occupational therapist would be the most appropriate professional to help you

² It’s acceptable to me if you use a cane for safety & security in certain circumstances, as long as you are actually able to walk successfully without assistive devices

³ Lack of a consistent, repeated and long-term day-to-day effort with exercise training is often the most common stumbling block for improving your functional fitness, so to encourage a positive outcome (positively change your physical life), I ask for a bare minimum commitment of 1x/week for a least six (6) months. A long-term partnership which ensures our frequent interaction is also very important for other reasons: There is a lot of continuous nuanced judgement & input on my part that goes into positive outcomes since older adult’s individual physical abilities vary tremendously and everyone’s learning occurs at different rates. Stated another way: An older adult fitness “program or plan” is not set-in-stone, but actually a rather dynamic concept that will require repeated adjustments to modify and progress (and sometimes regress). Consider something as seemingly simple & basic as walking for an example of individual physical differences – walking should be mostly foolproof right? Well, besides foot pain issues, walking success can be compromised by a whole host of other factors, like a lack of big toe or ankle bendability; or hip weakness that causes the pelvis to tip too much side-to-side; or insufficient dynamic (moving) balance which makes it hard for you to adjust to ground irregularities or trip-worthy obstacles like uplifted sidewalk segments. Identifying and subsequently correcting these limitations (and others) will help create the most productive, safe, and enjoyable walking experience – and they take time to correct & improve

⁴ My Fees & Policies Statement outlines my current fees, billing methods, monthly session minimums, cancellation policy, no show policy & illness prevention protocols/policies

⁵ Since all my clients are in the high-risk group for respiratory virus complications, we utilize a properly fitting KN-95 or N-95 face covering at all times during our sessions. In addition, research with older adults indicates that most functional ability loss with aging occurs during “disuse events” brought on by viral illnesses, surgeries, falls, etc., so we will do all we can to prevent these damaging disuse events and keep you moving forward rather than backward – masks are easy & they work