Restoring the body through physiotherapy

An unhealthy or sick body requires treatment. There are different treatment methods that are being practiced. The most common ones in modern times are medications and surgeries. But, physiotherapy has remained an alternative treatment method for a long time now and its practitioners are increasing in Nepal, owing to significant results they have demonstrated in patients.

This writer had met Jay Prakash Kapari (PT) some six years ago with complaints of severe back pain and diagnosis of Ankylosing Spondylitis. After several medications, the pain had not subsided and medicines did not settle the pain. With a tiny hope, I had visited his clinic Ortho-Neuro Rehab Centre, located near Gwarko. Surprisingly, a few days of session gradually subsided my pain. Later, changing the medication along with physical therapy interventions helped me overcome spondylitis.

Whenever my pain is unbearable, due to various factors, I visit him and he performs manual therapy including chiropractic, cupping, NDT and others and the results have been positive. After conversing with him during our multiple meetings and seeing him progress over the years, I believe there is a large scope of physical therapy treatments in Nepal. 

When asked how he became a physiotherapist, he recounts, “Some of my friends wanted to become a medical doctor, some engineers and others lawyer and teacher, but I wanted to become a little different and I ended up joining physiotherapy considering the future potential.” 

Kapari remembers how he could secure his enrollment in one of the reputed colleges in India for physiotherapy after his high school in Nepal. He completed his Bachelor’s in Physiotherapy from Dolphin PG Institute of Bio-Medical and Natural Sciences and later Master’s of Physiotherapy in Neurology as well from the same institute. He crosses the memory lane and shares a happy moment when he stood the university topper.

Soon after earning his master’s degree, Kapari attended a number of seminars, received fellowships and participated in workshops and trainings, all related to chiropractic, NDT, Dry needling, Vestibular Rehab, PNF, Cupping Therapy, Osteopathy, Mulligan, etc. After lots of training and practice, he returned to Nepal with an aim to serve the local people needing his services. Kapari then joined a few hospitals and clinics in Nepal. He also taught a few physiotherapy classes in colleges. 

After working for a while, an idea hit him that would take his service to a larger community. He decided to start his own clinic in order to provide direct therapy sessions to community people and provide employment to a few of his juniors. He resigned from his job and provided treatment in his own clinic for long hours. He is also found to be teaching his juniors for them to be better physiotherapists. 

Kapari also travels to other cities of Nepal, providing planned physiotherapy training to physiotherapists running clinics there. He says, “Besides running my own clinic, I want to share my skills and experiences with other physiotherapists who are less experienced than me. This lets them increase their knowledge as well as their new skills can benefit their community people. After all, I will be satisfied because I won’t be able to visit all the places for the sake of treatment.”

Every day is not the same for him. Most cases are repetitive and a few new cases require thorough study and planning. Kapari reminisces about some critical cases when asked what sort of difficult cases he has come across. He says, “In my clinic, I provided treatment for many critical cases like brain stroke, Cerebral Palsy, Spinal Cord injury, Guillain Barre Syndrome, head injury, Ankylosing Spondylitis, Arthritis, Nerve Compression, PIVD, Parkinson, Bell’s Palsy, etc.”  Asked how he feels when his patients recover, Kapari says, “When severe cases are treated successfully, the patients call the treatment a miracle and their family members consider it totally unbelievable.”

Kapari shares a case of a GBS (Guillain-Barré Syndrome) on a 12 year-old boy who had suddenly found his four limbs not working and was totally bedridden. “All of his family members lost their hope initially but after a month of my treatment, the boy was cured and was back to normal,” he says. 

Another challenging case was of a 32 years old female suffering from PIVD (Prolapsed intervertebral disc). “The woman was very frustrated and depressed because she took many treatments in numerous hospitals and clinics, but to no avail. One of her relatives told me about my clinic and she visited me. After just seven sessions of chiropractic treatment, she became totally fine and fit.”

There was another critical case which required his serious attention. It was a three-year-old child unable to sit, stand and walk. After pediatric rehabilitation he was completely cured and then he could join the school. 

Kapari’s Ortho-Neuro Rehab Centre has been providing highly advanced and newly researched specific treatment method for patents ranging from Chiropractic (Spinal manipulation, traditional bone setting), manual therapy, dry needling, cupping therapy, vestibular rehab, neuroplasticity, kinesiology taping, ergonomics training, electrotherapy and exercise therapy.

When asked how he feels now after a decade of service and after treating thousands of people, he says, “I have been seeing lots of people not undergoing appropriate treatment and visiting India and other countries with high hopes of cure. I have been working very hard to make such an environment here in Nepal so they need not take sorrows with them while they travel outside Nepal and receive standard reliable treatments in their own country.”