Peterson opens LifeFit Physical Rehab

PRINCETON — A Wyanet woman with more than two decades of physical therapy experience has opened her own clinic.

Barb Peterson opened LifeFit Physical Rehab Ltd. at 1225 N. Sixth St. in Princeton. The business is in the building that formerly housed the Jehovah’s Witness Church.

“The emphasis of this clinic will be treating orthopedic-type injuries and Return to Work programs,” she said.

Orthopedic injuries are ones to a person’s muscular or skeletal system involving bones, joints or muscles such as when a person fractures a tendon or after surgery to their knees, ankles or shoulders.

Peterson has worked at several different places during the last 15 years she has lived in this area. She has been a licensed physical therapist for around 21 years.

“I wanted to proceed with my own private practice in the Princeton area,” she said. “I want to serve patients in Princeton and the surrounding small towns.”

Peterson said a person can rehabilitate at her clinic after getting a referral by their physician for physical rehab.

Illinois is a right to choose state, so a person can choose what clinic they want to get their rehab from after an injury or a surgery, she added.

Peterson saw her first patient at LifeFit April 17 and hopes to add staff as her business grows. Currently, some friends of Peterson’s have come to her clinic for services, as well as others who heard about it being open.

Peterson has four pieces of cardiovascular fitness equipment in her clinic with some having an emphasis on lower or upper extremities, while others work on both areas of a person’s body.

She also has five pieces of strengthening equipment designed to strengthen a particular area such as the trunk, and upper (arms) or lower (legs) extremities.

She also has various other weights that people can use with some equipment designed to help improve a person’s balance while recovering from an injury or surgery.

Peterson’s Restore to Work Program has equipment designed to help a person do the tasks of their prior occupation before being injured or having surgery.

Peterson added she uses post traumatic manual therapy with many of her patients to either decrease the tightness in their muscles or firm them up, depending on what is needed for therapy.

Peterson decided to buy the building on North Sixth Street for her clinic because of its location on a busy street and that it had a big open area already for her equipment where she wouldn’t have to do a lot of renovation prior to opening her business. She also felt the clinic receives a lot of exposure because it is at a four-way stop intersection where Sixth Street and Route 34 come together.

Peterson can be reached at LifeFit Physical Rehab at (815) 875-2348.

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