East Mill Physio

East Mill Physio Supporting lifelong athleticism with an integrative approach to rehab, injury prevention and performance optimization.

Neurofunctional Acupuncture, Manual Therapy, Exercise Prescription, Core Retraining, Education.

✨ Neuro Performance Physical TherapyA comprehensive, proactive approach to supporting your sport, career, and life.Your ...
02/10/2026

✨ Neuro Performance Physical Therapy
A comprehensive, proactive approach to supporting your sport, career, and life.

Your body is your most valuable tool. Neuro Performance Care is designed for people who rely on it, and want to protect, optimize, and support it for the long run.

Who is Neuro Performance Care for?
• The elite athlete looking to maximize performance, improve neuromuscular efficiency, and build resilience against injury
• The weekend warrior noticing stiffness, slower recovery, or recurring aches as training and life demands add up
• The professional whose work requires strength, precision, or endurance—and who can’t afford downtime
• The young athlete wanting to build efficient movement patterns and reduce injury risk early
• Anyone who values a proactive, evidence-informed approach to health rather than waiting for pain to appear

What is Neuro Performance Care?
Neuro Performance Care combines physiotherapy and neurofunctional acupuncture to optimize how your nervous system and musculoskeletal system work together.

Movement quality, coordination, and nervous system health matter for everyone—not just athletes. This approach focuses on identifying early signs of dysfunction, such as reduced nerve signaling or compensatory movement patterns, before they turn into pain, injury, or performance limitations.

Why the nervous system matters
Movement starts in the nervous system. It controls muscle activation, coordination, balance, and reaction time. Even without pain, impaired nerve function can quietly reduce efficiency, increase fatigue, and limit performance—often without you realizing it.

Over time, training load, work stress, past injuries, and incomplete recovery can cause your body to function below its true capacity.

How Performance Care Physio works
Each session includes a detailed neuromuscular assessment focusing on motor nerve function—the signals that allow your muscles to work effectively.

When nerve signaling is disrupted, muscles may test “weak” even though true strength hasn’t been lost. Strength training alone can’t fix this. Restoring optimal nerve function allows your body to fully benefit from training and conditioning.

Neurofunctional acupuncture and targeted manual techniques are used to improve nerve signaling, motor unit recruitment, and movement efficiency. Many people notice immediate changes during their session.

What clients often notice
• Improved muscle activation
• Easier, more efficient movement
• Better performance and recovery
• Reduced injury risk over time

Some people choose regular sessions, while others come seasonally or a few times a year, depending on training load, goals, and lifestyle demands.

While injuries can’t always be prevented, many underlying risk factors can be reduced with proactive care.

If your sport, career, or lifestyle requires physical performance, Neuro Performance Care Physio may be a great fit for you.
At East Mill Physio, we’re here to support your long-term health, movement, and performance.

💬 Feel free to reach out with questions or to get started.

🔥Hot take 🔥Physical integrity and anatomical “perfection” are NOT what determine how well your body functions.‼️You can ...
12/12/2025

🔥Hot take 🔥

Physical integrity and anatomical “perfection” are NOT what determine how well your body functions.

‼️You can have arthritis, a bulging disc, a rotator cuff tear, or other structural changes, and still move, perform, and feel great. Structure matters, but it is often far less important than most people have been led to believe.

🤩This is why neurofunctional acupuncture and a neurofunctional approach is so exciting. It allows us to change how your body functions – your functional configuration, if you will – WITHOUT having to change your actual anatomy AND WITHOUT living in the depressing mindset that you need to “fix” your arthritis (etc) in order to comfortably do the things you want to do.

How cool is that? You can optimize strength, coordination, movement patterns AND desensitize nerves 🤯 WHICH can change the way your brain perceives pain, regardless of what your MRI or X-ray shows!!

Think about it this way: your body is a complex system. Movement, balance, strength, and performance are influenced by your nervous system, muscles, fascia, and the way your brain and body communicate.

👉Blaming joint pain solely on the joint itself is like replacing a thermostat because your house won’t warm up, when the real issue is the programming, the wiring, or how the whole system is working together. You can swap out the device, but if you never address the function behind it, the problem remains.

Thus, when we focus on improving nerve function, we open a whole new level of potential you may not even realize is available‼️ You can move more efficiently, reduce pain, prevent injuries, and perform better in daily life or sports – all without “fixing” the structure (the arthritis, the tear and etc).

The takeaway? Stop worrying about how “perfect” your body looks on imaging, or how it appears on a scan. Focus on how it functions – both subjectively and objectively. That’s where the real power lies, and where you can make the biggest difference for your health, performance, and longevity.

If you are interested in a neurofunctional assessment to determine where your body could use a boost, and a tailored treatment plan to help restore function, send us a DM 💬 or check our availability and schedule online 🖥️!

Best wishes,

💞 Kristin

🩺With the right care, athletes rarely need to retire early because of a lingering pain problem.At EMP, we are passionate...
12/05/2025

🩺With the right care, athletes rarely need to retire early because of a lingering pain problem.

At EMP, we are passionate about helping athletes of all ages and levels stay in their game for the long haul, whether you’re just starting out, playing recreationally, or competing professionally.

One of the tools we find incredibly powerful is neurofunctional acupuncture 📍.

Neurofunctional Acupuncture is NOT just for when you’re injured.

It can support performance before a competition, help your body recover after an event, and even be part of your off-season maintenance.

🕗Before an event, it helps reconnect your nervous system with your muscles, boosting strength, speed, and reactivity.

🕜After an event, it supports your nervous system and your body’s natural recovery processes, helping tissue repair and reducing fatigue.

We use a neurofunctional approach to help you move, perform, and recover better so you can stay in your game longer (whether that is recreational dog walking 🚶🏼 or professional hockey 🏑).

If you’re curious to learn more about how this works and whether it could help you, feel free to send us a DM. We’d love to chat. 💞

Best wishes,

💞Kristin

Here are some fun facts about the amazing people at EMP! 💕💕
12/04/2025

Here are some fun facts about the amazing people at EMP! 💕💕

💡 Did you know? A thorough physical assessment can uncover hidden areas of dysfunction before they turn into pain or inj...
12/03/2025

💡 Did you know? A thorough physical assessment can uncover hidden areas of dysfunction before they turn into pain or injury.

One powerful way to detect these issues is through neuromotor testing. This specialized type of muscle testing helps trained practitioners pinpoint areas where your muscles aren’t firing efficiently – places where your nervous system isn’t quite sending the proper signals. In other words, it identifies muscles that aren’t contracting smoothly, fully or efficiently.

⁉️The best part? These neuromotor dysfunctions can be treated, and improvements are often noticeable in real time!

You can expect to feel:
✅ More ease with movements - less tension and/or more strength
✅ Minimal effort to resist muscle testing

Which can help to:
✅ Reduced risk of injury
✅ Optimize physical performance

Take the first step toward moving better and feeling stronger.

💻Visit www.eastmillphysio.ca to learn more and book online.

💬Got questions? Send us a DM – we’d love to help!

Best wishes,

💞Kristin

✨Left untreated, most injuries WILL eventually feel “better.” But asymptomatic does not mean fully functional. Leaving i...
12/01/2025

✨Left untreated, most injuries WILL eventually feel “better.” But asymptomatic does not mean fully functional. Leaving injuries unaddressed can create problems later on.

🤕When tissue is injured, your body goes through a predictable healing process – the first of which involves inflammation and the delivery of chemical mediators to guide the healing process. This stage happens with nearly all acute injuries, although the amount of swelling varies.

As tissue healing progresses, this inflammation is reabsorbed into the circulatory system but can leave behind a varying degree of edema (often micro-edema that is not detectable to the naked eye). It contains a mixture of fluid and chemical irritants.

Edema can interfere with nervous system function and affect the health of local joints, muscles, fascia, and blood flow. If it is not addressed with manual techniques, acupuncture, or other targeted interventions, it can persist for many years – without you even realizing it.

The consequences of this lasting edema and chemical irritation can include:
👉Sensitivity that lingers long after normal healing should have occurred – think, that back that suddenly “goes out” every year when you twist the wrong way in the shower
👉Pain that appears months or even years later without an obvious cause in the same OR a different body area – suddenly waking up one morning with shoulder pain, thinking you must have slept “wrong”, even though you have been sleeping the same way for the past 40 years
👉A feeling of weakness despite diligent adherence to your strength training program – squat not feeling even despite your best efforts?

Even if you think you feel fine, residual dysfunction can remain, often invisible to the naked eye 👀.

Our neurofunctional practitioners are trained to identify these hidden dysfunctions and use a combination of acupuncture and hands-on techniques to RESTORE proper function in a way that you can feel in real time.

This neurofunctional approach helps clear the lingering effects of old injuries and keeps you moving well, for life.

‼️Don’t settle for just “feeling better”.

👊Make sure you have a plan to restore mechanical AND neurological function after any injury – whether it was months, or decades ago.

Best wishes,

💞Kristin

🦶Your ankle might be quietly sabotaging you …I ask most of my clients: “Have you ever sprained an ankle?” And almost eve...
11/28/2025

🦶Your ankle might be quietly sabotaging you …

I ask most of my clients: “Have you ever sprained an ankle?” And almost every time, I get a shrug and a “No … well … I’ve rolled it, but it was nothing serious.” but when we dig a little deeper, the signs confirm an old injury – residual tenderness that they didn’t realize, and an obvious difference in ability to recruit the muscles around the ankle.

💡Here’s the thing – those “minor” “rolls” can be an important piece of the puzzle 🧩. Old ankle injuries can leave behind silent nociception: 𝗾𝘂𝗶𝗲𝘁 𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘀 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗲𝘅𝗶𝘀𝘁 𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗲𝘀𝗵𝗼𝗹𝗱 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗲𝗽𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗶𝗹𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗹𝘆 𝘄𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗸 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗼𝗰 𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺.

⚡Lingering chemicals from past inflammation can quietly bombard your nervous system, subtly changing how quickly and efficiently your nerves can carry information to the muscles.

Of course, your body adapts, but there is a limit to its ability to compensate. You might not feel it… yet. But these silent changes can quietly set you up for future pain or injury.

✔️That’s why a neurofunctional approach can be so beneficial for your health and long-term wellbeing. By looking beyond the pain or injury, we can uncover hidden dysfunction, restore proper nervous system function, and retrain your body to move with minimal compensations.

💕Our goal for you? Lifelong health, resilience, and optimal performance using a proactive approach – not waiting to react when your body has run out of compensations (although, we can help with that too!).

At EMP, we treat the whole system, not just your symptom.

If you want a plan to clean up the signs your old injuries have left behind and minimize your risk for future injury, hit us up!

Best wishes,

💞Kristin

Client Love 💙💙💙
11/27/2025

Client Love 💙💙💙

🧠 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲’𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗾𝘂𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗮 𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘂𝗿𝗼𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗘𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗿𝗼-𝗮𝗰𝘂𝗽𝘂𝗻𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺 𝗮 𝘁𝘂𝗻𝗲-𝘂𝗽!Your ner...
11/26/2025

🧠 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲’𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗾𝘂𝗶𝘁𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲 𝗮 𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗹𝗲 𝗡𝗲𝘂𝗿𝗼𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗘𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗿𝗼-𝗮𝗰𝘂𝗽𝘂𝗻𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗴𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺 𝗮 𝘁𝘂𝗻𝗲-𝘂𝗽!

Your nerves are the body’s communication superhighway. They carry signals from your brain to your muscles so you can move efficiently 💪, and relay information from your environment back to your brain so you can sense the world around you 🧠.

In short – nerves are essential!

But when the neural environment is disrupted, signals can get interrupted. These interruptions often appear gradually, without warning or obvious cause.

The result? You might notice muscle weakness, fatigue, or movement difficulties—often 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 any pain shows up or you find yourself rolling your ankle on completely even ground 🤦♀️.

𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗲 𝗱𝘆𝘀𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗯𝗲 𝗽𝗶𝗰𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝘂𝗽 𝗱𝘂𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮 𝗻𝗲𝘂𝗿𝗼𝗳𝘂𝗻𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁, 𝗴𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗮 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗼𝗻 𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻.

💡Here’s the best part: Acupuncture needles can be placed precisely to target these dysfunctional nerves.

They help normalize neural pathways by improving circulation and restoring normal electrical conductivity.

This can:
📍Restore muscle strength and power
📍Improve movement ease and coordination
📍Reduce pain
📍Keep you moving at your best

A few strategic needles might be all it takes to get your nervous system, and your body, firing on all cylinders!

If you are interested in learning more about Neurofunctional Performance Care, send me a DM!

Best wishes,

💞Kristin

🥳We’ve got some big news …….We’re soooooo excited to welcome Doris Folkens to Team East Mill Physio 💞 – a highly skilled...
11/25/2025

🥳We’ve got some big news …….

We’re soooooo excited to welcome Doris Folkens to Team East Mill Physio 💞 – a highly skilled PT with two decades of expertise and a passion for helping people stay active for life!

Here’s a little bit more about Doris!

Doris earned a Bachelor degree in Life Sciences from Queen's University. She went on to receive her Physical Therapy degree, also from Queen's University, in 2004.

Since then, she has completed continuing education in anatomical acupuncture 📍, manual therapy 🤲, vestibular rehabilitation 👂, concussion management 😵💫, management of rheumatic diseases 🦵 and most recently, pelvic health 🫶.

She has a broad range of experience with treating orthopaedic conditions, complex fractures and musculoskeletal and neurological conditions.

She especially enjoys working with post-operative conditions, with the goal of returning to active sport.

Maintaining pain-free physical activity across the lifespan is important to her, and she enjoys empowering and assisting individuals to get back to doing what they love 🩵.

She is an avid hiker 🥾 and skier ⛷️ (both cross country and downhill) and currently also teaches downhill skiing for Glen Eden's Ladies Day Program.

We are lucky to have her energy and expertise on team EMP!

Head to www.eastmillphysio.ca/dorisfolkens to learn more and schedule an appointment!

🤕𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗶𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺 …It started seemingly out of nowhere. One day you are floating around from dog walking, weig...
11/24/2025

🤕𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗶𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺 …

It started seemingly out of nowhere. One day you are floating around from dog walking, weight lifting and Pelotoning, and the next, you can hardly lift your leg to get out of the car.

Your heart starts to race as you rack your brain, rehearsing every step you took yesterday, trying to pinpoint what you might have done to cause this injury.

You let out a full body sigh of relief as you recall your 70 pound Golden Retriever 🐕lunging after a squirrel on Main Street and the jarring effort it took to reign him back in. (He is a 12/10 and the goodest boy, but he can be a bit impulsive).

🤔“That must have been it”, you think.

You spend the next couple of days tending to your hip with some ice, stretching and going slower on your hikes.

Next thing you know, a week has gone by and you feel a tug of worry in your stomach when you realize your hip still hurts 🫠 - you can’t cross your legs without a sharp pain and the aching you feel down the front of your thigh is distracting when you are trying to get your work done.

So you begrudgingly make an appointment with your favourite Physio and spend the next 2 months strengthening your glutes and working on your core and pelvic floor strength.

You feel some moments of improvement, and glimpses of hope ... but if you are being totally honest with yourself, your hip still hurts and you still can’t do any semblance of butterfly pose in your restorative class 🧘 (and it used to be your favourite!).

Can you relate? Do you have an injury that appeared “out of the blue” and now seems to haunt you?

If so, you are in the right place!

Here’s the truth that you probably already know, but might need to hear again: Pain is often just the symptom and …

𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗵𝘂𝗿𝘁𝘀, 𝗶𝘀𝗻’𝘁 𝗮𝗹𝘄𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺.

The real cause can be somewhere completely unexpected - tied to an old injury, a scar, a muscular imbalance or a belief …

If you’re tired of chasing pain and not getting anywhere, it might be time to stop treating the symptom and start digging for the real dysfunction.

That’s exactly what we do at EMP: longer appointments, whole-person assessments, and treating the nerves that relay information throughout your entire body.

Pain doesn’t lie … BUT it doesn’t often tell the full story 📖.

If you want help finding the root cause of your discomfort so that you can get rid of it, optimize function and prevent yourself from waking up to mysterious (insert body part of your choosing) pain that doesn’t seem to want to go away .. that’s our area of expertise.

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions!!

Best wishes,

💞 Kristin

Navigating perimenopause is a journey filled with changes—some challenging, many empowering. As estrogen levels shift, i...
09/24/2025

Navigating perimenopause is a journey filled with changes—some challenging, many empowering. As estrogen levels shift, it’s common to experience musculoskeletal and pelvic health symptoms like joint aches, muscle pain, pelvic floor dysfunction, urinary incontinence, chronic pelvic pain, constipation, and even lower back pain[4][5][9]. These symptoms can affect your ability to do the activities you love, but they don’t have to define this phase of life.

As Suzanne Somers beautifully put it:

“One thing I love about aging—and I do love aging—I’ve got a wisdom that no young person can buy. You earn it.”

You can embrace this wisdom and invest in your well-being. A physiotherapist who deeply understands female anatomy and physiology can be your partner in this exploratory and beautiful chapter. With expert guidance, you can address pain, improve pelvic floor function, and stay active — so you can keep doing what brings you joy.

You don’t have to go through these changes alone. We are here to guide and support you to feel empowered in your changing body.

Citations:
[1] https://www.balance-menopause.com/menopause-library/perimenopause-menopause-and-pain/
[2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7710408/
[3] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4612559/
[4] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13697137.2024.2380363
[5] https://www.nature.com/articles/s44294-025-00061-3
[6] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33299396/
[7] https://journals.lww.com/pain/fulltext/2025/01000/how_is_age_at_menopause_and_reproductive_lifespan.19.aspx
[8] https://www.sheddonphysio.com/joint-and-muscle-pain-in-perimenopausal-women-causes-presentation-and-treatment/
[9] https://www.rheumatologyadvisor.com/features/musculoskeletal-pain-symptoms-common-in-menopause/

Address

294 East Mill Street
Elora, ON
N0B1S0

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 7pm
Tuesday 9am - 7pm
Wednesday 9am - 7pm
Thursday 9am - 7pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

Telephone

+15195033990

Website

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Welcome to East Mill Physio in Elora

East Mill Physio offers a different experience from your traditional physiotherapy clinic. Here, I take a holistic approach to the treatment of your pain and movement problems with full consideration for your widely complex physiology. My approach includes a comprehensive evaluation of all body systems to determine their relative contribution to any pain and/or movement dysfunctions.

Treatment often involves a combination of:


  • Education: to empower you in your health and performance by facilitating your understanding of your body and it’s unique needs

  • Neurofunctional acupuncture: a specialized type of acupuncture used to stimulate the peripheral nervous system to evoke real-time changes in movement, function and symptoms