The Neurodynamic Patient: A Clinical Guide to Reasoning, Nerve Mobilization, and Functional Recovery

When symptoms suggest neural involvement, the hardest question is not simply which test or exercise to use. It is what the finding means, how much provocation is safe, and what the patient needs next. The Neurodynamic Patient gives physical therapists and rehabilitation clinicians a practical framework for evaluating and managing nerve-related presentations without reducing the patient to a positive test, presumed lesion, or standardized progression. Neural findings are interpreted alongside symptom behavior, neurological function, regional loading, irritability, recovery behavior, functional demands, and response over time. The result is a clinically grounded approach in which each finding informs a working hypothesis but does not independently establish diagnosis, lesion site, mechanism, or treatment indication. Inside, you will learn how to: - Place safety and neurological examination before provocation- Distinguish radicular pain, radiculopathy, mechanosensitivity, and peripheral nerve presentations without overdiagnosis- Develop and revise a provisional neural hypothesis- Select sliders and tensioners as mechanically distinct strategies- Match exercise dose to irritability, recovery behavior, and the patient's comparable sign- Interpret immediate and delayed responses without treating improvement as proof of mechanism- Apply neurodynamic reasoning to upper- and lower-quarter presentations- Progress treatment toward capacity, function, participation, agency, and self-management REFER, MODIFY, CALM-focused care, GLIDE-focused care, and LOAD-focused care are presented as clinical-entry doors available at different times-not as mandatory stages or a fixed protocol. With longitudinal cases, examination strategies, dosing principles, reassessment guidance, documentation considerations, and patient-education applications, this book connects neurodynamic examination to the decisions that determine meaningful recovery. Written for physical therapists, hand therapists, rehabilitation professionals, residents, and students who want to think before they mobilize-and reason from the patient's presentation rather than from a technique.