It seems odd for a supposedly patient-centred profession to still have special interest groups that perpetuate the idea that the body can be carved up by systems and structures, and that I could be a cardiorespiratory, neurological or musculoskeletal physiotherapist and not a physiotherapist for the whole person. Special Interest Groups (or SIGs) are historically significant divisions within the profession that owe their structure to the guilds that formed in the Middle Ages, when blacksmiths, printers and jewellers tried to protect the interests of their members and promote their speciality (see Farr, 1997 or Smith 2004). But SIGs may now be creating more problems than they resolve, and … [Read more...] about New: (Special) Interests
New: Movement for Life
If there's one concept that seems to have united physiotherapists in recent years, its movement. Movement for Health is the theme chosen by WCPT in 2008 to convey 'the core of what physical therapists/physiotherapists do' (link), Movement for Life has been adopted by physiotherapy clinics (link) and professional bodies (link), and like pain, has become a key way that we are now trying to express our point of difference, complexity and diversity of skills. And yet movement remains almost entirely unexamined by the profession (which is interesting, given how much stall we now seem to place on evidence-based practice!) Apart from a few attempts to provide a larger appreciation for … [Read more...] about New: Movement for Life
30 Days of September is back
Those of you with good memories, will remember that we launched a campaign last year called "30 Days of September." Each day we posted up an idea for something the CPN might do in the coming year, and you voted on the ideas you liked best. The results of last year's poll are here, and the results gave our new Executive a lot of help in planning our work for the next 12 months. Well a year has gone by and September has returned, along with this year's campaign. Our focus this year will be on new ideas. Each day we'll be posting an idea on the blog to entice physiotherapists to think otherwise. There will be posts about new research, new ideas, new practices, new policies...all … [Read more...] about 30 Days of September is back
Critical conferences and decolonising physiotherapy
A couple of months ago I was lucky enough to attend a critical health conference in South Africa. The group that runs the conference is the called International Society of Critical Health Psychology (ISCHP). Similar to our organisation, ISCHP “provides a forum for scrutinising, challenging and questioning what is said and done in the purported pursuit of promoting and improving ‘health’ by health psychologists and others”. ISCHP has a membership of around 800 people and its main activity as a society is to organise bi-annual conferences (the first was in 1999) and to moderate an active email list. The email list provides members with information about relevant employment, publishing, … [Read more...] about Critical conferences and decolonising physiotherapy
History of Physical Therapies in 19th Century New Zealand
Excuse the shameless plug, but I'm giving a public lecture on Thursday night (NZ time) on the History of Physical Therapies in 19th Century New Zealand, and it will be live streamed and recorded, so I thought some of you might be interested in seeing it. New Zealand offers an interesting case study because, in contrast to Europe and North America, where treatments like massage, mobilisation, hydrotherapy, electrotherapy and exercise were some of the most popular 'medical' remedies, physical therapies were almost invisible. New Zealand was a frontier colony for much of the 19th century, and a lot of settlers had little enough food to live on never mind indulging in such … [Read more...] about History of Physical Therapies in 19th Century New Zealand
Physiotherapy and the zone of play
I'm doing a public lecture next week on physical therapies in the 19th century (you will be able to see a live feed or delayed broadcast of it here if you're interested in hearing about it), and the whole project has been fascinating. One thing that occurred to me doing the preparation for the talk was how many images there are of people sitting in mud baths and hot springs. There was never any real proof that these things did anything other than warm you up, but there was a lot of anecdotal evidence that they were used to treat all sorts of diseases, from syphilis to sciatica, asthma to psoriasis. Suffice to say, in 19th century New Zealand, hot pools were a natural phenomenon, … [Read more...] about Physiotherapy and the zone of play
The social construction of pain
äMedicine convinces us that we can understand the human condition biologically. Pain teaches us otherwise. Pain, as we know it today, bears all the hallmarks of a subjective phenomenon that can only be understood by the person experiencing it. Yet even this belief has a history; a history that is closely tied to the genealogy of the physiotherapy profession. Tony Ballantyne has explored the way pain became a vehicle for social reformers after the 17th century, shaping many of the health and social welfare reforms that were to follow. Ballantyne argues above that pain narratives were a powerful way for humanitarians to promote the belief that the state should take responsibility for … [Read more...] about The social construction of pain