One of the biggest growth areas for physiotherapists in the coming years years will be the management of chronic illness. The numbers of people now living with conditions that were once relatively rare is quite staggering, and they are becoming more complex. A report released last week by the Australian Health Policy Collaboration (link) has once again highlighted the need for us to take a society-wide approach to managing the threats posed by conditions like heart disease, diabetes, cancer and respiratory illnesses, through a concerted effort to tackle the 'upstream' causes: alcohol consumption, sedentary behaviour, high salt intake, smoking, etc. Obesity, diabetes, hypertension and … [Read more...] about Do you need a four-year degree to tell someone to stop smoking and do more exercise?
'Choose to move' is powerful, but now show me how
There has been a lot of interest on social media over the last few days in this promotional video from the Physiotherapy Associate of British Colombia (PABC) called Choose to move (see below). [wpvideo A3Fy3aoW] What's really striking about this video is that it's all about movement; not the kind of movement defined by the American Physical Therapy Association as “a system of physiological organ systems that interact to produce movement of the body and its parts," but rather a humanistic, social and deeply personal experience. As @AdamMeakins opined on Twitter, [this is a] 'f**king awesome advert... No tape, needles, machines or manips in sight!' The advert does a wonderful job of … [Read more...] about 'Choose to move' is powerful, but now show me how
Research update: Lifelong activity, chronic pain, therapatients, children’s embodiment, prostheses and body image
A few interesting new research studies have come out this week that I thought might be of interest. Each of these has some interesting connections with critical physiotherapy. Click on the links in the title of each article for more information. Characteristics of lifelong physically active older adults Sheryl L. Chatfield Abstract Most adults in developed countries fail to accrue enough regular physical activity to prevent or decrease the impact of chronic diseases associated with aging. I conducted semistructured interviews with 16 purposely selected older adults ranging in age from 53 to 70 years to explore the practices of successful lifelong adherents to physical activity. I … [Read more...] about Research update: Lifelong activity, chronic pain, therapatients, children’s embodiment, prostheses and body image
Reformulating 'Inclusion': a study with non-speaking disabled youth
Each day over the next week I'll post up an abstract for a paper being presented by a member of the Critical Physiotherapy Network at the In Sickness and In Health conference in Mallorca in June 2015. (You can find more information on the conference here.) Reformulating 'Inclusion': a study with non-speaking disabled youth By Gail Teachman & Barbara Gibson Discourses of 'inclusion' assume a predetermined normative centre that constructs people as either insiders or outsiders along a moral hierarchy that privileges particular bodies. It follows then, that movement towards inclusion necessarily involves a whole series of exclusions. In this presentation we explore these notions through … [Read more...] about Reformulating 'Inclusion': a study with non-speaking disabled youth