About Stillwater

The physio who charts everything

Stillwater is the practice of Daniel Mercer, MPT, a physiotherapist who believes you deserve to see your own progress in numbers, not just feel vaguely better.

Daniel Mercer, MPT, in the Stillwater clinic

The Story

Why measurement became the method

I spent my first years of practice in a high-volume clinic seeing four patients an hour. Everyone got fifteen minutes, a heat pack, and the same three exercises. Some got better. I could never tell you exactly why, and neither could anyone else.

That bothered me enough to leave. Stillwater is built on the opposite premise: one patient at a time, a real baseline measured at the first visit, and a chart we update together until the numbers say you are done. It is not complicated. It is just rarely done.

When I am not in the clinic, I am trail running on the North Shore, coaching my daughter's soccer team, or rehabbing my own stubborn Achilles with the same protocols I give my patients.

Credentials

Trained to keep learning

Master of Physical Therapy, University of British Columbia
Fellow, Canadian Academy of Manipulative Physiotherapy (FCAMPT)
Certified in dry needling (IMS)
Certified running gait analyst
Registered with the College of Physical Therapists of BC
Inside the Stillwater clinic

Principles

Three rules this clinic runs on

If we can't measure it, we don't claim it
Progress gets numbers: degrees, kilos, seconds, kilometres. Feelings matter, but data keeps us honest.
Discharge is the goal
A good physiotherapist works themselves out of a job. Open-ended treatment plans are a red flag, here and anywhere.
You do the rehab, I do the plan
Recovery happens between visits. My job is to make the plan short, precise and worth your fifteen minutes a day.

Come get a baseline

A 60-minute assessment tells you exactly where you stand and what it will take to move again.