Research We have to start with this. WCPT has published a list of the 15 most influential trials in physical therapy. I loved the fact that they used a qualitative process to ascertain which blinded, controlled and randomised clinical trial they found most influential. No hint of irony there then! Fatemeh Rabiee, Anne Robbins and Maryam Khan's article in Health Education Journal Gym for Free: The short-term impact of an innovative public health policy on the health and wellbeing of residents in a deprived constituency in Birmingham, UK is well worth a look if you're interested in how community-based health interventions might work for people in marginalised communities. A paper … [Read more...] about Critical physiotherapy curios – updates, ideas and new postings
A pill to make you a better physio
There’s been a lot of talk recently about the way we may be able to transform ourselves as humans in the not-too-distant future. The trans-humanism movement is gaining momentum, with some people writing about a future where people will be able to take a pill to make themselves vastly more intelligent, or unlock the possibility of unlimited memory. Others are talking about never again growing old and using robotics and prosthetics to vastly enhance our physical capabilities. In the latter case proponents ask why should we restrict ourselves to adaptive devices only when we become ill? And then why should those adaptive devices only seek to mimic so called ’normal’ activity? What if, … [Read more...] about A pill to make you a better physio
Bodies-as-machines / post-humans / skull-candy
What would it be like to have a device osteointegrated into your skull to convert light into sound? Well now you can find out. There has been a lot of discussion of cyborg culture over the years and this piece from Sally Davis in the gorgeous on-line magazine/blog Nautilus (http://nautil.us/) is well worth a read. Cyborgs and the culture of the post-human is nothing new of course. In many ways physiotherapists have been involved for years in aids and adaptations that help people move and function. The key difference here is that post-human culture is getting people to move their thinking away from the use of technologies as adaptations to make up for some sort of loss, to … [Read more...] about Bodies-as-machines / post-humans / skull-candy