There is a lot of poor qualitative research out there. Recently I reviewed an article in which the authors had spent three years studying people's experiences of chronic pain. They didn't identify any particular philosophy guiding their analysis, they just interviewed seven people and, somehow, came up with three 'themes': that pain was unpleasant; that it was aversive (something to be avoided); and it disrupted their lives. This is a good example of bad qualitative research. And there is a simple test you can apply if ever you're in doubt. All you need to do is to ask whether the research tells you anything you didn't already know. This study took three years, but told us … [Read more...] about Patient work
New: Assessment
For this post, we're linking up with Michael Rowe in South Africa and his excellent site /usr/space. Michael is a physiotherapist and educator in South Africa, with a passion for teaching and learning. He is an active member of the Critical Physiotherapy Network and a regular blogger on health care education, pedagogy and technology-informed learning. Earlier this week, Michael posted a blog exploring the possibilities of assessing teams, not individuals. Assessing teams instead of individuals Patient outcomes are almost always influenced by how well the team works together, yet all of the disciplines conduct assessments of individual students. Yes, we might ask students who … [Read more...] about New: Assessment
Is this really a vision for physiotherapy?
The vision for UK physiotherapy from csp.org.uk on Vimeo. The CSP has just released a new video titled The vision for UK physiotherapy, which is in a similar vein, and follows closely on from the Physiotherapy Associate of British Colombia's recent Choose to move video, which I wrote about recently (link), and the APTA's call for a 'transformative year in physical therapy (link). Each of these calls carry a similar message about the transformative possibilities of physiotherapy and the importance of physiotherapists reaching beyond the narrow confines of the body-as-machine. It's hugely significant that physiotherapists are now recognising this and seeing that unless they can connect … [Read more...] about Is this really a vision for physiotherapy?
The social model of disability and physiotherapy: Some personal reflections from Mike Oliver
Many of you will know of the Social Model of Disability, and some will have followed the work of its founder Mike Oliver. We approached Mike to write a post for criticalphysio blog a few weeks ago. This is Mike's response to the challenge of the social model of physiotherapy for future practice. It's more than thirty years this year since I published a book introducing the social model of disability onto an unsuspecting world (Oliver 1983). The idea behind it stemmed from the Fundamental Principles of Disability document first published in the mid-1970s (UPIAS 1976) which argued that we were not disabled by our impairments by the disabling barriers we faced in society. A couple of years … [Read more...] about The social model of disability and physiotherapy: Some personal reflections from Mike Oliver