Nathan Bridgeman has been a practicing Physiotherapist since graduating Summa Cum Laude from the State University of New York at Buffalo 1998. He worked for 15 years in the USA, most recently for the consistently top-ranked University of Pennsylvania Health System. There he served with one of the USA’s largest and most experienced lymphedema treatment programs and the world-class vestibular rehabilitation, audiology, and ENT team of the Penn Medicine Balance and Dizziness Center. He received his training Certification as a Lymphedema Therapist from Guenter Klose in 2005 and went on in 2010 to attend advanced training at the Foeldiklinik in Germany, the world leader in lymphedema care. Nathan is a member of the (USA) National Lymphedema Network and is a Certified Lymphedema Therapist in the Lymphology Association of North America. He received his advanced training in vestibular rehabilitation in 2005.
Nathan has experience treating men and women with lymphedema in every region of the body and at every stage of the disease’s progression: mild cases of newly onset lymphedema as well as more advanced manifestations, including providing relief of symptoms to people in the last stages of cancer and people with limbs severely deformed by massive swelling. He is experienced with managing lymphedema in the head and neck amongst patients who have had cancer surgery and radiation in this part of the body. Nathan is the lead author of the GPSEHN patient symptom survey (pending publication), which, preliminary research indicates, is an accurate measure of the severity of lymphedema in the head and neck. Nathan presented his research on this assessment tool to a full session of the (USA) National Lymphedema Network at their biannual conference in 2012.
Nathan has taught post-breast cancer exercise safety classes developed in partnership with the UPenn researcher whose “Physical Activity in Lymphedema” (PAL) study published in the New England Journal of Medicine established the first weightlifting protocol proven to be safe and effective at reducing the risk of lymphedema.
In addition to his specialized work treating lymphedema and vestibular disorders, Nathan has practiced Physiotherapy in a wide variety of outpatient and hospital settings treating people young and old. He has worked with critically ill patients in intensive care wards, patients recovering from stokes or major surgery in rehabilitation centres, people recovering from sports injuries and orthopedic surgeries, as well those seeking relief from their everyday aches and pains. Nathan has served as an adjunct teaching assistant on special topics in Physiotherapy education at several US Universities.
At Complete Lymphedema Therapy and Vestibular Rehabilitation, Nathan brings to Hong Kong his training and experience in treating people suffering from lymphedema and from vestibular disorders: two conditions which are all too frequently overlooked and under-treated.