Jaynie Rudick, a Great Neck resident with multiple sclerosis, said she refused to get help before her sister introduced her to Reddy-Care Physical Therapy at 475 Northern Blvd. in Great Neck.
Now, a few years later, Rudick said she still makes a point to come many times a week to get moving and see people she’s bonded with.
“I have a good day. I come in, I see everybody, I know what to do with the machines, and then I go on my way,” Rudick said. “And if I need help, they [the staff] help me, and if I don’t need help, they’ll leave me alone because I basically know what to do.”
“Everybody’s so wonderful,” Rudick added.
Rudick is one of the more than 600 people Ruddy-Care Physical Therapy and its nearly 50 therapists see each week, who range from athletes trying to work on their running technique to elderly people or those recovering from serious injuries.
Now the Great Neck facility has opened a second suite to nearly double their space and try helping more people with a “hands-on” approach.
“It’s always been a goal of mine to help as many patients as we can in the area,” physical therapist Vinod Somareddy, who founded Reddy-Care Physical Therapy 15 years ago and attended Herricks High School, said in an interview. “So the fact that we can have more services for the patients –doing occupational therapy, more equipment and more staff – is really rewarding.”
The new space, basked in natural light, is equipped with a variety of machines, dumbbells, and the Solo Step, an overhead track and harness system meant to prevent patients from falling as they get rehabilitated.
Alex Gomez, the CEO of Reddy-Care, said they plan to continue to bring in equipment like the Solo Step and the Ultra G anti-gravity treadmill, which will be “very important” for the facilities.”
But there will also be more home visits that could be particularly helpful to seniors because they would be doing therapy in an environment they’re “most functional in,” Gomez said.
“I think that the two combined, what it’s really providing to seniors is freedom to maintain their independence as long as possible, and that’s a common trend among seniors: that they want to stay home,” Gomez said. “They don’t want to go to an assisted living facility or a nursing home or a hospital.”
“We definitely are very passionate about seniors,” Gomez added, “but we’re always going to be generalists. We’re not the type of practice that caters to any one particular population.”
Clinical director Stephanie Idjadi, a physical therapist and herself a Great Neck resident, said that Reddy-Care focuses on “one on one manual therapy,” where physical therapists can pinpoint issues, work personally with patients, and actually see their progress over time.
This makes it particularly unique, she said – as well as particularly rewarding.
“It’s why I came into this field. It’s the best part of my job,” Idjadi, who started at Reddy-Care in 2009 on the marketing side, said. “I don’t think I would be doing this unless you see the reward of your patients doing better. It’s the best feeling in the world.”
“And having a patient walk out of here when they came here two months ago and couldn’t do anything,” Idjadi added, “it’s super emotional.”
As for Rudick, who happens to see Idjadi in her visits to the pool at the Parkwood Sports Complex, she said she’s glad that Ruddy-Care has the new suite since it could sometimes get a little crowded in the other suite.
“It’s nice that they’re making things bigger and getting more space,” Rudick said.
Somareddy said he hopes to expand Reddy-Care Physical Therapy, which also has a smaller Farmingdale office, to cover more parts of Nassau County and Queens.
