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Training

About Us

Who We Are

About Us

Since 1998, Creative Rehab has been successfully evaluating and treating patients in the Lake, McHenry and Kenosha Counties. We have grown quickly with our services and facilities due to the generous support of our past and present patients and strong physician network. Creative Rehab was born as the vision of the owner, Anita Davidson PT, to provide a premier physical therapy experience in the Lake County area incorporating a higher level of functional evaluation and treatment. As the practice expanded, and employees were hired, the patient care vision expanded to provide an outstanding work environment for therapists to thrive and grow based on the belief that supported employees are better able to care for our patients.

Currently, we are located at 1 South Greenleaf Suite I in Gurnee. All patient care is provided by licensed physical therapists dedicated to customized evaluation and treatment one on one with the patient. We do not double book to allow for a focused treatment session. Our ten physical therapists have a combined experience of more than 140 years in clinical practice.

Mission Statement

Our mission is to provide the highest quality assessment, treatment, and education to each patient. We are committed to return of function, injury prevention, and long term wellness through exercise and patient education. We believe that education is the core element to all patient care as it enables the patient to demonstrate self-responsibility and enhances outcomes. It is our commitment to provide personalized programs for each patient we serve.

How Creative Rehab Came to be

Creative Rehab was founded and owned by Anita Davidson. Anita was not raised with a dream of being an entrepreneur and didn’t even know what a physical therapist was when she decided to be one. As a preacher’s kid from rural Indiana, she worked her way through college and started working as a PT in hospital systems where she found her voice working with people that appeared to be too difficult or chronic for others to help. When she found herself pushing the traditional limits by seeking out the cause of a chronic pain issue instead of just treating the symptoms, her desire to seek out those in need flourished. Frequently patients with chronic pain were channeled into standard, one size fits all treatment that she fought against,  learning innovative ways to change that dynamic even when she was told to stay "hands off and basic". As the need became more apparent for these challenging patient cases, she started to, as she calls it, play with therapy techniques and create new ways to treat her patients. Anita didn’t accept that people should be discounted and not given a chance to feel better. With every patient, she worked to figure out the root problem and teach patients to manage their issues independently. Anita continued to learn and innovate more and more over the years while honing her leadership and teaching skills until she was responsible for leadership and management of a large physical therapy department in a hospital. 

 

As time went on, Anita saw the corporate business agenda dictating the patient care agenda with less focus on patient improvement and more focus on revenue. While she was recognized for her clinical skills, she was concurrently being pushed outside of patient care into more administrative, non clinical roles which caused Anita years of distress and frustration. Finally, her 10 year old daughter asked Anita if she wanted to continue on this path and be an 80 year old so frustrated that she would throw her teeth at her boss or go back to doing what she loved, which was to treat people in need. With that illustration of her future Anita realized she did not want to follow the hospital’s plan for her career and lose out on time with her family and with their support she was driven to start Creative Rehab. Her goal, to treat people how they deserve to be treated.  

In the room above her garage, Anita started the business on March 1, 1998. At that time there was no social media, no internet marketing, no electronic billing, and very few female business owners in any industry. She was told repeatedly she would fail and it would never last. This was the turning point for Anita, her family, countless patients, and physical therapists to come. Anita’s ambition, genuine care, and good old stubbornness caused her business to grow exponentially as patients sought her out for care, leading her to add more staff  and move the business out of her house. The business has continued to expand and contract depending on the economic state over the years. What has been a constant is Anita’s vision of how patients should be treated and how a business should care for its employees.

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