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.) Embodied ways of knowing in physiotherapy - unexplored competencies? By Anne G. Langaas The glocal phenomenon under scrutiny in this presentation is the marginalization and uncertain status granted to certain ways of knowing in physiotherapy. The empirical material was generated through a study of Norwegian students of physiotherapy. Different ethnographic methods were used including repeated dialogic interviews/conversations with … [Read more...] about Embodied ways of knowing in physiotherapy – unexplored competencies?
Re-inventing artisans for 21st century health care
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.) Re-inventing artisans for 21st century health care By David Nicholls Calls for health professionals to be more than ‘technical rationalists’ have been prominent in professionalization literature for more than half a century. Professions with a strong history of skills-based competence have struggled more than most to respond to these calls. Those that have been heavily influenced by biomedical discourses - professions like … [Read more...] about Re-inventing artisans for 21st century health care
Interpersonal relationships and policy workarounds: Using theories of practice to examine patient transitions from hospital to home
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.) Interpersonal relationships and policy workarounds: Using theories of practice to examine patient transitions from hospital to home By Jay Shaw, Pia Kontos, Wendy Martin and Christina Victor The advancement of neo-liberal policy initiatives and large-scale austerity measures has created intense challenges for health and social care systems around the world. This is particularly the case in England, where the National Health Service has … [Read more...] about Interpersonal relationships and policy workarounds: Using theories of practice to examine patient transitions from hospital to home
Is behaviourism the future for physiotherapy?
Yesterday, I took part in one of the regular and always enjoyable Physiotalk Tweet Chats (#physiotalk). This one was on the role of physiotherapy in exercise prescription. As usual, the discussion ranged widely over all sorts of topics: whether physiotherapists were experts in exercise prescription and what needs to be taught in the UG curriculum not being the least of them. One thing that came through strongly was a desire to manage the client/patient's behaviour. Words like adherence, compliance and motivation kept coming up and people seemed to recognise that all the skill in the world wouldn't matter to the therapist if the patient didn't engage. As someone who's read their fair … [Read more...] about Is behaviourism the future for physiotherapy?
Update on philosophy of walking
A few months ago, I posted a review of three brilliant books about walking. I wanted to highlight these books because walking is not only a fundamental part of everyday life, it's also a defining feature of a lot of physiotherapy practice, and I'm often bemused by how narrow-minded physiotherapists are about it. It's almost a metaphor for the profession: here is a human experience that has been written about for centuries, that engages all manner of human achievement, and we've reduced it to mere gait patterns. The point about all three books is that walking is so much more than heel strike and toe off. Not that these are unimportant, but in the grand scheme of things I don't believe … [Read more...] about Update on philosophy of walking
Interview with Clare Kell
As part of our 'interview' series with people in the Critical Physiotherapy Network, I asked Clare Kell some questions about her approach to physiotherapy, research and life in general. Clare was the author of a paper titled 'Making practice education visible: Challenging assumptions about the patient's place in placement environments' (International Journal of Therapy and Rehabilitation, 21(8), 359-366). Clare is a Senior Lecturer and Programme Lead at Cardiff University in Wales (KellC@cardiff.ac.uk). You can find Clare's CPN member profile here Where does your interest in health care education - and particularly patient-centred care in physiotherapy - come from? This is a hard … [Read more...] about Interview with Clare Kell
Growing critical physiotherapy in Brazil
The Critical Physiotherapy Network has been set up to bring people who think differently about physiotherapy together. Thus far, we have more than 110 members on four continents. We are well represented in some areas, but we’ve got a lot of work to do to reach out to physios in others. We currently only have one member from Brazil - Ana Luiza Oliveira - who is a PhD student at the University of Campinas. Ana kindly provided this brief overview of physiotherapy in Brazil. "Physiotherapy in Brazil was legally recognized in 1969. It is a new profession here. Brazilian physiotherapy is guided by the biomedical model, it is mostly a private practice, and is not part of the SUS (Brazilian … [Read more...] about Growing critical physiotherapy in Brazil