Elly completed her Bachelor in Physiotherapy at the Akademie voor Fysiotherapie in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in 1980. After working in private practice in the Netherlands for a short time, she moved to Switzerland in the same year, where she has since practiced in various hospitals and private practice. She attained her OMPT qualification with the Schweizer Verband für Orthopädische Manuelle Therapie (SVOMP) in 1990 and the teaching qualification "Ausbildnerin Berner Kaderschule" in 1992. In 2000 she graduated from the University of East London, the UK, with a Masters of Science. 2012 she was awarded the title "Clinical Specialist MSK/PhysioSwiss" by the Swiss Physiotherapy Association and has served as a Clinical Supervisor and Coach for those physiotherapists who wish to obtain the same professional qualification.
Elly has published numerous articles and book contributions. She is co-author of the 6th edition of Maitland's Vertebral Manipulation. She published together with Kevin Banks the edition of Maitland's Peripheral Manipulation (2005), Maitland's Clinical Companion (2009). Furthermore, she edited/authored editions of Maitland's Vertebral Manipulation – Management of Musculoskeletal Disorders Vol. 1. 8th ed. (2014) and Maitland's Peripheral Manipulation – Management of Musculoskeletal Disorders Vol. 2. 5th ed. (2014). She is currently working with Gerti Bucher-Dollenz on the books' newest editions, published by the end of 2023.

After qualifying as a teacher with the International Maitland Teachers Association (IMTA) in 1992 she became Senior Teacher in 2003. She was secretary of the IMTA from 1992 until 1994, and Chairperson from 1995 until 2001. Elly is a previous executive committee member of the SVMP (Schweizerischer Verband Manipulativer Physiotherapie) and past member of the educational committee of the Schweizerischer Verband Orthopaedischer Manipulativer Physiotherapie (SVOMP). Currently, she is the coordinator of the educational program in the Netherlands, which leads to OMPT-Qualification based on the IMTA-course program Levels 1-3.
She has moved to Wimberley, Texas, U.S.A. in 2018. She continues to teach in pre- and postgraduate courses in Europe and the U.S.A. and is preparing for her license to practice in Texas.
Her special interests include the treatment of patients with chronic pain; movement-paradigms as the specific basis for the body-of-knowledge of physiotherapists; paradigms of illness experience and salutogenic perspectives; clinical reasoning processes and the role of narrative reasoning in clinical practice; the psychosocial dimensions of physiotherapy and manual therapy; qualitative research methods within physiotherapy research.