The importance of proper physical therapy flooring is now being recognized by doctors and physical therapists.
Physical therapy and rehabilitation centers are installing Sport Court® flooring to help their patients have a more positive therapy experience. This trend started around 2005 when the Ben Hogan Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation Center was looking for a safer floor. At the time, this facility was catering to professional athletes as well as the general public.
Robin Allen with NexCourt recommended Sport Court® Defense flooring with 2mm rubber underlayment to the Ben Hogan center for their physical therapy flooring. Robin believed that Sport Court® flooring would provide the right amount of shock absorption and traction for a therapy environment. The available color variations also allowed for inlaid designs. This would later become useful when designing floor layouts for children’s hospitals.
Recognizing Superior Flooring
The sports medicine physicians and the rehabilitation therapists at the Ben Hogan center quickly recognized the superiority of the Sport Court® flooring. Prior to this first use of Sport Court® flooring in this environment, physical therapy centers often had carpet, rubber, or vinyl floors. These all proved to be less than ideal for this setting. Carpet was simply too soft. And, carpet is known to harbor pathogens such as staph. The rubber and vinyl floors were too hard. These were also found to have too much traction or not enough, depending upon the surface texture. Either way, they were dangerous options for physical therapy flooring. Once installed at the Ben Hogan center, Sport Court® flooring was very quickly proven to have the right amount of cushion and traction.
Following this initial success, Sport Court® flooring was chosen for other Ben Hogan rehabilitation centers. (These later became Texas Health Sports Medicine facilities.) And, as word spread about this superior flooring, other rehab facilities began to inquire. Cook Children’s Health Care System installed their first Sport Court® Response flooring in a children’s physical therapy clinic in 2011. The flooring was laid atop 1.5mm rubber underlayment. The design of the flooring included color inlays to aid in the therapy.
Similar Appreciation – Uninformed Advice
Staff at Cook Children’s immediately had the same appreciation for Sport Court® flooring that was had by the staff at Ben Hogan/Texas Health. This led to other Cook Children’s centers making the upgrade to Sport Court® flooring. Then architects and designers specified an expensive rubber/cushioned vinyl type of floor for a new facility. This went against the advice of medical staff and the therapists who worked with patients every day. Unfortunately, the designers got their way and Cook Children’s newest physical therapy center did not have Sport Court® flooring.
Within months of opening the new therapy center, Cook Children’s contacted Robin at NexCourt for better physical therapy flooring. The vinyl/rubber floor recommended by the architects and interior design staff had proven to be a safety hazard. In 2015 NexCourt installed 3mm rubber underlayment that was then topped with Sport Court® Response High Gloss flooring, thus rectifying the dangerous therapy floor situation. This design provided the very best shock absorption with the very best traction. Indeed, the lateral shock absorption provided by Sport Court® Response flooring is a patented feature unique to Sport Court® flooring. And, the high gloss urethane coating is similar to more costly hardwood sports flooring.
A Proven Track Record
In the 15 or so years since the first installation of Sport Court® flooring at the Ben Hogan Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation Center, NexCourt has worked with over a dozen therapy clinics in North Texas. And, they have other similar projects currently in the planning stages. NexCourt’s service area was recently extended into Oklahoma, where they plan to work with physical rehabilitation centers to have better physical therapy flooring.
Sport Court® flooring is a true multi-use floor proven to reduce injuries, have lower install costs, and lower life cycle costs compared to other well known flooring options.
If you’re in DFW, North Texas, or Oklahoma and you’d like to know more about Sport Court® flooring, please contact NexCourt online or call 817-283-4646.
If you’re in San Antonio, South Texas, or the Texas hill country, please contact South Texas Sport Court. And, if you’re not in our service region, we’ll happily direct you to the Sport Court® office near you.
