How A Brain Injury At Birth Turned Into A Doctor's Mission To Heal Brain Injuries And Restore Healthy Vitality

Dr. Cathy Holway, PT, DPT shares her journey that led to the founding of The Neurovascular Institute and the development of the Neurovascular Integration Therapy. Her unique learning style, creativity and engagement with the world was driven by her own brain injuries, and allowed her to find connection with her patients to restore their own healthy embodiment. Healing from her own brain injuries amplified her curiosity about neurology and what was possible for others.

Dr. Holway was born with forceps damage which injured her brain, which went unacknowledged when she was a child due to a lack of understanding of her medical situation at the time. While Dr. Holway was growing up, the injury affected her daily life as she struggled to tie her shoes, walk down the stairs and have properly functioning communication between her brain and body. However, her brain injury gave way to the development of a thriving creative side in Dr. Holway. 

Dr. Cathy Holway, PT, DPT, Founder of The Neurovascular Institute

By the time she reached high school she was already fluent in five different languages, which inspired her dream to become a translator for the United Nations. Dr. Holway didn’t pursue a career as a translator, instead she received her bachelor's degree and certificate in physical therapy, leading to her hospital work where she began thriving in her career due to the connections she was able to create with patients. 

While Dr. Holway was training to become a physical therapist; she suffered a traumatic brain injury which caused her to have seizures. After 12 years of minimally effective care for her seizures she experienced a manual therapy session that took the pressure off her brain damage.

That led her to pursue the manual therapy field and she was invited to move to Florida and run the intensive treatment programs for the Upledger Institute, working with the CranioSacral therapy technique.

She eventually left the Upledger Institute and has been running The Neurovascular Institute for the last 25 years. Before the COVID19 pandemic, Dr. Holway was consistently traveling across the country to run her remote treatment clinics and teach seminars, but since COVID she now primarily works through Zoom sessions. 

One of the services Dr. Holway offers to her patients, through The Neurovascular Institute, is the Neurovascular Integration Therapy (NVI), which she developed to relieve nervous system dysfunctions and restore healthy body-brain vitality. She says the Zoom sessions work particularly well for her practice.

“Part of the reason the Zoom sessions work so well is because I’m present with the patients in a multi-sensory and multidimensional manner and through this type of engagement we can figure out together how the body and the brain became out of sync with each other,” says Dr. Holway. “We will then begin taking the first steps to find a balance and connection and work towards a permanent solution.”

Dr. Holway continues to provide treatment live and on Zoom as well as offering coaching and community support.   

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