Meet Dr. Maria
Dr. Maria V. Pirraglia is a board-certified specialist in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PMR), also known as Physiatry.
The medical specialty of Physiatry embodies the practice of restoring function and optimizing performance after injury or illness. In Dr. Pirraglia’s practice, a large emphasis is placed on staying well, preventing re-injury, and maintaining a healthy vascular system.
Dr. Pirraglia earned her medical degree from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. She completed her residency at the New York Presbyterian Hospital – Weill Cornell Medical College and affiliated institutions, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Hospital for Special Surgery, and Rockefeller University. Her rehabilitative training was very broad, encompassing the management of patients recovering from high-performance athletic injuries, spinal cord injury, orthopedic and spine surgery, stroke, cardiac events, cancer, and serious burn injuries.
Dr. Pirraglia is an experienced electromyographer proficient in the performance of electromyography (EMG) and nerve conduction studies (NCS) used to diagnose and monitor patients suffering from cervical and lumbar radiculopathies, repetitive strain syndromes, such as carpal tunnel and cubital tunnel syndromes, and to evaluate symptoms of acute pain, numbness, tingling, muscle spasm, weakness, atrophy, or loss of coordination.
Unique to Dr. Pirraglia’s training is to have had the opportunity to work side-by-side with Dr. Willibald Nagler, a longtime endowed Professor at Cornell University’s Medical College and former Chairman of Rehabilitation Medicine at New York Hospital – Weill Cornell Medical Center. The highly sought after private practice of Dr. Nagler, an Austrian native, attracted patients cross continent from New York to St. Moritz, where Dr. Pirraglia excelled in non-operative orthopedic care, with a large focus on skiing, climbing, and other mountain sports injuries. Outpatient musculoskeletal care included the diagnosis and treatment of backaches, neck pain, rotator cuff tears, hip and knee injuries, arthritis, and pain management. Carefully selected and staged exercises were the cornerstone of the total therapeutic prescription.
Dr. Pirraglia is a published author, has co-created instructional video presentations for the Continuing Medical Education (CME) network, and has been an invited guest lecturer on rehabilitation specialty topics, particularly winter sports injuries, for several prestigious medical universities on both the east and west coasts. Dr. Pirraglia has been providing office-based musculoskeletal evaluation and treatment in association with facilities ranging from small community practices to university hospital clinics and large multi-location corporate entities. She has spent years serving the populations of northern Nevada, largely Reno, Sparks, Carson City, and the surrounding areas. Her care includes non-invasive procedures to improve joint flexibility, increase muscle strength, offset the effects of aging, and promote a generalized feeling of wellness.
