Jennifer Marie Fabre, P.T., MPT, CSCS
Manager/Owner
Therapeutic By Design Fitness & Wellness, LLC.
Therapeutic By Design Fitness & Wellness, LLC.
8752 Quarters Lake Road
Baton Rouge, LA 70809
Tel.225.922.7774
Fax.225.752.0888
TherapeuticByDesign@cox.net
“Live Well… Love Much… Laugh Often.”
—Bessie Anderson Stanley
“I will…discover strengths I didn’t know I had. Give less time to the fluff. Make no excuses. Have courage to change. Be calm. Focus on people-not things. Live by my priorities. Make a difference. Inspire the people around me. Enjoy being organized. Create the future I envision. Look back on this year with satisfaction. Accept no limits. Give more time to what’s important. Keep my eyes on the Goal. Not be distracted.”—Franklin-Covey
Opened in January 2004, Therapeutic By Design Fitness and Wellness, LLC offers the services of Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, and Exercise Programming in Baton Rouge. Licensed therapists provide traditional therapy, personalized exercise programs, and also offer specialty services of Neuro-Developmental Techniques, Sport Rehabilitation, Balance Retraining, Orthopedic and Spine Rehabilitation, Healthy Aging and Functional Fitness Programming in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere.
Fabre says, “I believe it is important for the clinician to take into consideration that therapy is not only for treating a specific physical condition or diagnosis, but it is about looking at the entire person and determining ways to alleviate the impact the physical condition has on that person’s overall well-being and quality of life.” Fabre continues by saying, “whether you are a competitive triathlete recovering from a sports injury; a person with a newly diagnosed life-altering debility; someone of an average fitness level wanting to upgrade a workout routine to achieve specific goals; or perhaps someone seeking new ways to cope with osteoarthritis, Therapeutic By Design is dedicated to helping you optimize, restore and/or maintain your overall fitness, function, and health according to your personal goals and lifestyle.”
Owner and Physical Therapist Jennifer Fabre attended the Louisiana Scholars’ College of Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, LA where she earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Liberal Arts and Sciences with a concentration in scientific inquiry and minors in both biology and math. She continued her education at LSU Health Sciences Center in Shreveport, earning a Master of Physical Therapy Degree. Currently, Jennifer is in a Ph.D. program of study at LSU in the Department of Kinesiology with concentrations in exercise physiology and motor behavior. She’s conducted research in the areas of “physical function performance, balance assessments and programming, and cardiovascular measures in older adults.”
Fabre’s own experience growing up in a family with a person having a disability is what led her to the study of Physical Therapy. She cites some statistics from the 1996 report of the Surgeon General— “only 60% of Americans perform any type of physical activity and 25% say they do no exercise on a daily basis.” America’s number one killer, heart disease, can be caused by a lack of activity. Other diseases such as diabetes, cancer, obesity, hypertension, which stem from environmental and behavioral factors, are preventable and treatable. “I want to be an asset to the community in the field of physical therapy and exercise science. Providing people the tools necessary to achieve a healthy lifestyle is an important goal for me.”
By the year 2030, the number of men and women 65 years of age and older will reach 70 million in the United States alone. Persons 85 years of age and older will be the fastest growing segment of the population. Fabre believes that musculoskeletal fitness can provide many health benefits—“reduced coronary risk factors, reduced risk of osteoporosis by increasing bone mineral density, increased flexibility and strength, improved glucose tolerance, and greater success in completion of activities of daily living.” Part of her current research deals with falls in older adults, which have an estimated $17 billion impact on health care costs per year. In hopes of promoting a national strategy for fall-risk reduction programs, Fabre is working on the early identification of those older adults likely to fall. “An overall plan for my current research is to complete validation of our newly developed falls risk screening tool and determine the efficacy of local community-wide fall risk prevention programs.”
This twenty-nine year old woman doesn’t know the meaning of the word leisure. Besides working on her Ph.D and opening her own business, Fabre is active in several community groups and four related professional organizations; attends and presents at various local, state, and national conferences; is the Healthy Athletes FUNFitness Coordinator for Louisiana Special Olympics; has been a guest lecturer at LSU’s Department of Kinesiology; and has worked as a research assistant at Pennington Biomedical Research Center. She also holds copyrights as author of two exercise programs—Therapeutic Aquatic Exercise Program and Spine Rehabilitation Exercise Program and as co-author of the LAAAP Falls Risk Screening Tool. She has appeared as a co-author for articles in Journal of Gerontology, Journal of Geriatric Physical Therapy, Southern Medical Journal and Gait & Posture.
“Currently, I do not have much time for pleasure reading,” Fabre says. “I mostly spend my time reading about current research in my field of physical therapy and exercise physiology.” Her shelves are full of heavy reading such as: Merck Manual; Netter’s Atlas of Human Anatomy; Wilmore and Costill’s Physiology of Sport and Exercise; ACSM’s Guideline for Testing and Prescription; Lewis and Bottomley’s Geriatric Physical Therapy; Shephard’s Aging, Physical Activity, and Health; Saunders’ and Tornberlin’s Evaluation, Treatment, and Prevention of Musculoskeletal Disorders: Volumes 1 and 2; Guyton and Hall’s Human Physiology and Mechanisms of Disease; and Shumway-Cook and Woollacott’s Motor Control” Her favorite magazines are also professional journals (Physical Therapy; Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise; Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research; Journal of Orthopaedic and Sports Physical Therapy; JAMA), but she does read 225, Prevention, Runner’s World, National Geographic, Muscle & Fitness, Louisiana Home and Garden, Black Enterprise, Essence and Self for pleasure.
Fabre’s credits her love of reading to her father, a librarian in the St. Tammany Parish School system for over 30 years. She spent afternoons and summers in the library and remembers “reading the World Book Encyclopedias (going from A to Z) and looking forward to the next issue of National Geographic (what awesome pictures).” Furthermore, Fabre states, “my Dad and Grandmother (a former teacher) were strong influences in beginning my quest for life-long learning…while Mom encouraged independence, creativity, and integrity.”
Fabre is determined to link the profession of physical therapy with the art of exercise science to encourage an integrated healthcare community. By pursuing her doctorate in Kinesiology she is equipping herself to become a proactive voice in not only the profession of physical therapy, but in the healthcare arena as a whole. “I look forward to teaching the community, other healthcare professionals, personal trainers, students of the allied health professions, and exercise science researchers and clinicians the importance of strength-training, prevention, exercise, nutrition, and wellness while also promoting the practical application of this knowledge to the gym, treatment table, and functional activities.”
Fabre keeps the Franklin-Covey quote from the beginning of this profile over her desk at home as a constant reminder. “I am a physical therapist who is both devoted to life-long learning and eager to remain loyal to my dreams.”
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