In Celebration of our 25th Anniversary, Therapy In Motion was featured in the Norman Transcript.

This is a copy of the article and it can also be found online at www.thenormantranscript.com 

Cindy Merrick has one goal: make people healthier.

Pursuing that goal has led her business, Therapy in Motion, to 25 successful years in the Norman area.

“The dream was to be a service, never to make money,” Merrick said. “I think because we haven’t been about making money, that’s why we’ve been so successful. I believe we live in a reciprocal universe and God kind of gives to those who give back.”

Merrick originally founded Therapy in Motion with Robin Annesley in 1992 inside of what is now The Health Club.

The owner at the time, Skip Cannon, wanted her to start a physical therapy office in The Health Club and said he wouldn’t charge her rent because he wanted an office on-site, so she did evaluation for his clients.

Merrick said she’s focused on the therapy and Annesley has been not just instrumental but necessary in the creation, growth and continuation of Therapy in Motion.

Merrick became a physical therapist after getting divorced. She prayed about what career she should pursue to provide for her family and decided to take a career placement test. It told her that she should be a physical therapist.

“I didn’t even know what that was,” Merrick said. “It’s a great, great profession. You get paid money to help people. Every day our staff looks forward to coming into work.”

Previously, she had been a softball coach and a counselor and saw physical therapy as a way to use both her past professional experiences to help people.

The field of physical therapy has grown form doctors directing nurses working to rehabilitate World Ward II veterans to trained therapists going through seven-year programs and earning doctorate degrees in the field.

“Because we’re highly trained to look at the muscles and the joints and the way you move, if I find that somebody doesn’t fit the pattern we’re smart enough to send them on to a doctor,” Merrick said.

Since 2015, Therapy in Motion has seen an increase in their client base because of new regulations allowing people to go directly to a specialist of their choice without first going to a physician.

“Patients can seek the physical treatment facility of their choice and TIM has been blessed with a large new referral source of patients,” TIM owner Scott Boyles said.

Boyles owns the TIM site in Moore and Merrick said he has worked with Therapy in Motion for over a decade, with the same focus to holistic physical therapy patients receive at the Norman center.

Therapy in Motion now has six sites around Norman.

“I’m not really looking to build a huge franchise because we like to think of ourselves as a family, not a business, so that’s kind of our philosophy,” Merrick said.

Therapy in Motion also partners with the North American Institute or Orthopedic Manual Therapy to offer clinical fellowships and residencies. Merrick said 11 providers work out of the Norman office, including pediatric specialists.

“Our favorite patients are the complex ones who have seen other medical providers and still have pain.”

Merrick said she and her staff can’t treat everything, but they have a high level of specialization in one area — the body.

Therapy in Motion approaches health and physical therapy from a holistic point of view.

“We try to take care of our patients not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually too,” Merrick said.

Their current main Norman facility was built in 2000 and had an addition in 2001 and Merrick said it boasts state-of-the-art equipment.

Weightlifting, cardiovascular and other specialized equipment is spread throughout the facility. Merrick said some of their equipment is not widely available at clinics in Oklahoma.

One such piece of equipment allows therapists to elevate a person with MS, a problem knee or other problems limiting their ability to stand. This gives those people a wider range of motion during their therapy sessions, including letting them practice walking.

“A lot of the equipment we had designed,” Merrick said.

Merrick said their clients range from people recovering from strokes, cancer patients, blue collars workers with back problems up to high school, college and professional athletes returning to full health.

“We’ve treated seven Olympic athletes,” Merrick said.

Merrick said equipment and design decisions were made with patients’ wellness and comfort in mind, not cost.

But the center doesn’t rely on large, expensive equipment. Therapy in Motion has designed special therapy programs for a wide variety of health issues, from managing Parkinson’s to increasing balance and women’s health.

“We’ve got tons of specialty programs,” Merrick said.

She personally specializes in women’s health and said many people don’t know how physical therapy can help women with different health issues.

“My dream was to take care of that one patient in that room,” Merrick said. “I didn’t have a business plan and still don’t. That’s not really what we’re about. God just leads us to what we’re supposed to go do and we do it.”