Dr. Gargano has 30 years of orthopedic physical therapy experience with the majority of those years as the owner of a successful orthopedic private practice. In 1999 he became Board Certified in Orthopedics through the American Physical Therapy Association. He was the recipient of the Ohio Chapter’s award for outstanding clinical excellence in recognition of his contribution to the practice of Physical Therapy. Dr. Gargano and Dr. Ma have been working and training together since 2008. Their varied clinical skills and experiences bring a new perspective to the use of a dry needling for musculoskeletal pain and dysfunction. Working side by side in clinical situations they are able to gain new perspectives on combining their treatment philosophies. Together they continue to expand and develop new concepts relating to the Integrative Dry Needling (IDN) Courses.
Since 1996, Dr. Gargano has been instructing advanced educational seminars across the US and internationally. He is an Accredited Mulligan Concept Instructor and a former International Executive Board member of the Mulligan Concept Teachers Association (MCTA). He utilizes his vast orthopedic background and experiences to demonstrate how manual therapy and dry needling are integrated into clinical practice.
In 1998, Dr. Gargano developed the seminar entitled “The Upper Cervical Spine in Headaches, Dizziness and Pain; A Neuro-Orthopedic Perspective.” This specialty course provides knowledge on the clinical management of cranial, cervicogenic and vestibular conditions. Dr. Gargano is recognized expert in these specialty areas and recently developed a new course, Neurologic Dry Needling for Cranio-Cervical Pain and Dysfunction. This course focuses on the neurological considerations of this region and the effects of dry needling treatments.
Dr. Gargano is active in clinical research in many orthopedic areas and brings this skill set to the IDN concept. Recent research studies and publications and presentations:
- Griswold D, Gargano F, Learman K. A randomized clinical trial comparing non-thrust manipulation with segmental and distal dry needling on pain, disability, and rate of recovery for patients with non-specific low back pain. Jour. of Manual and Manipulative Therapy 2019
- Griswold D, Gargano F, A Comparison of Cervical-Cranial Dry Needling with Orthopedic Manual Therapy to the Cervical Spine for Cervicogenic Headache: A Multi-center RCT with 1- Year Follow Up. Data Collection phase. (75 subjects enrolled)