This is another post in our series of new bloggers on the criticalphysio site. This post comes from Professor Dina Brooks, Canada Research Chair in Rehabilitation in Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease at the University of Toronto in Canada. Let me start with two confessions: 1) this is my first blog ever; and 2) I am a quantitative researcher who has done basic and applied research and conducted multiple randomized controlled trials. With any luck, these disclosures will not turn you off reading this blog but intrigue you to know why I feel compelled to write my first blog ever, for the CPN. The day after WCPT Congress, I attended the CPN Salon in a beautiful venue in Cape … [Read more...] about Reflections of a quantitative researcher on the CPN Salon
A critical thinking sandpit exercise
It's hard sometimes to 'see' your own profession critically. Where do you start? What do you look for? How do you know that you've 'found' it? But if you're going to critically analyse your practice, having the ability to see what's normally in plain sight is a good skill to learn. There's an activity I do with PG students that I use to help them identify some of the things that underpin physiotherapy practice, so I thought I'd share it with you here and see if it resonates with you. (If you click to open this blogpost and scroll to the bottom, there's a comments box you can use if you have any particular thoughts you'd like to share). Step 1 - go into an image search engine, … [Read more...] about A critical thinking sandpit exercise
Slow physiotherapy
For a long time now, physiotherapy practice has been becoming increasingly pressured, with less time to spend with clients, tighter regulations about the number of appointments, and unrelenting pressure to demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our interventions. Where once patients would be in our hands for long enough to enjoy a modicum of rehabilitation or respite, now the emphasis is on the shortest possible contact necessary to cut the cost of care. I'm not suggesting that there's anything wrong with efficiency, independence and autonomy per se (well, I am, but that's for another day), and I'm well aware that the kinds of long-term care experienced by people under the … [Read more...] about Slow physiotherapy
“Seated physios giving advice on exercise to patients over the phone” – a follow-up
I posted a tweet about a small bit of news from the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP) that had caught my eye yesterday. It was about 'A telephone assessment service in Cambridgeshire [that] is helping more than half of its physiotherapy patients to self-manage their conditions' (link to the full press release here). It featured an image that I thought was interesting and just a little ironic. Here is the image. My comment on Twitter was that this was 'a thing of postmodern beauty', and both the picture and the full report raised the ire of some in the Twitter community. There were a number of things going on in this report that I think said some important things about the … [Read more...] about “Seated physios giving advice on exercise to patients over the phone” – a follow-up
The future for physiotherapy education
Lets assume, for a moment, that only our most modest predictions for the effects of new digital technologies, bodily enhancements, robotic technologies and advances in augmented reality come true, and that lots of our customary ways of thinking and being remain unchanged over the next half century. If we only see a moderate increase in people's use of the Internet as their primary source of health knowledge, and only a few people experience radical changes to their rehabilitation, home care and specialised healthcare, then we are still looking at a significantly different future for physiotherapy than we have today. So what will even some of the most modest changes mean for the … [Read more...] about The future for physiotherapy education
Critical Studies in Physiotherapy
2017 looks like being another busy and exciting year for the CPN. As well as our first CPN Salon (mini-conference), being held at the lovely Cape Town restaurant Ottimo Cibo on the day after the WCPT conference, we will be launching our first collaboratively written book. We're currently working on possible titles, with our favourite being Mobilising physiotherapy: A critical physiotherapy reader, but the final decision will be made soon. We already have full drafts of all 15 chapters, and the editorial team (Barbara Gibson, Dave Nicholls, Jenny Setchell and Karen Synne Groven) are working through their recommendations and edits. We have chapters that look critically at physiotherapy … [Read more...] about Critical Studies in Physiotherapy
Is there anyone better placed than a physio?
Thank you to everyone who responded to our last post on 10 reasons to love physiotherapy (link). These are strange and unsettling times, and it helps sometimes to be reminded of the good things that we do. This post follows on from last week's, asking the question whether there anyone better placed to take advantage of the changing face of healthcare than physiotherapists. Physiotherapists can sometimes forget how perfectly their skills and abilities line up with what people will want in the future, and we have perhaps been our own worst enemies in ignoring or minimising the power of some of these things in the past. So ask yourself this*: Are doctors better placed than physios … [Read more...] about Is there anyone better placed than a physio?