About

We are a centre of excellence in physiotherapy providing leadership in our community in the areas of pelvic health, pre and postnatal, and orthopedics and sports.

Our team of physiotherapists bring decades of knowledge, hands-on skill and passion to their practice. We work collaboratively as a team, sharing skills and knowledge, and are dedicated to providing the best quality patient care we can possibly provide. 

We are a community-based clinic focused on expert, compassionate, gender-inclusive and trauma-informed care. We strive to be not just a clinic – we’re a community centred on healing, movement, and empowerment. Our clinic space is full of character that is calm, beautiful, and welcoming with natural light, warm hardwood floors, and private treatment rooms. 

Through advanced clinical reasoning and differential diagnosis, our goal is to understand the root cause of our patients’ symptoms and the key contributing factors, to treat the source of the problem rather than the symptoms, and to prevent reoccurrence.

Our goal is to give our patients the tools they need through hands-on treatment, exercise and education, to understand their condition, and to empower our patients to lead healthy, active lives.

Our approach is integrated, holistic, trauma-informed, and individualized. We strive to understand and integrate the relationships between the musculoskeletal, myofascial, pelvic health, visceral, biopsychosocial and nervous systems, with our patients’ goals at the heart of our treatments. We are proud to be inclusive and sensitive to the diverse needs of all ethnicities, gender identities, gender expression, or sexual orientation.

Our Story

Heather founded Core Connections Physiotherapy in 2008 out of a deep desire to create a beautiful, community-based clinic and centre of excellence for orthopedic, pre and postnatal, and pelvic health physiotherapy services. 

It’s fun to look back at how the clinic has grown over the last 17 years, in a very heart-centered, organic way!

It all started during the years Heather was studying orthopedics. Her curiosity was piqued during a post-graduate lecture about the interconnectedness between low back pain and incontinence. From that moment onwards, Heather began to question how the musculoskeletal conditions she was treating every day were impacting the pelvic floor.

Heather delved excitedly into a Master’s degree and started to look critically at relationships between the musculoskeletal system and pelvic health. That exploration led to the development of a Master’s Research paper and publication – The Integrated Continence System: A Manual Therapy Approach to the Treatment of Stress Urinary Incontinence (2008). Heather went on to start up the Pelvic Floor Program in Ottawa in 2008, putting in practice her vision of this integrated orthopedic-pelvic health approach.

Over many years, Heather poured her energy into raising awareness in the community about pelvic health during the childbearing years, during menopause and older adult years, and all the years in between! Heather was inspired and driven through a strong sense of purpose and devoted much energy over years to raising awareness about pelvic health among physicians, the community, and physiotherapy students studying in the Orthopedic Division. There was so much to be done in those early days of growing pelvic health awareness in Ottawa!

In 2011, Heather founded Core Connections in a beautiful, sunny, single-room clinic in Wellington West across from the Bridgehead near Holland Ave. Those were busy years multitasking as a sole clinician, receptionist, while cleaning and carting the laundry to and from the clinic by bike.  Soon after, Monate and later, Sue, joined Heather and thus sparked a beautiful spirit of professional collaboration and friendship over many years.

We moved into our current location in Westboro on Richmond Rd across from MEC  in 2014. With its south-west natural light, high ceilings and warm hardwood floors, the clinic found its beloved new home! So much wellness and healing has taken place between these walls over the years. 

Over the last 17 years, we’ve grown and evolved into a team of dedicated, experienced practitioners who adore what we do! With our diverse clinical backgrounds and shared passion for helping our patients, we’ve created a very special place for healing and wellness! Heather is very grateful for the opportunity to work alongside such skilled and beautiful colleagues- the clinic would not be the special place it is without the contributions of its passionate and amazing team of practitioners. 

Looking ahead, we continue to evolve our services to align with the needs of our patients.

We are deeply grateful to our dear patients who trust and value our services and who continue to support us!