What is Physiotherapy?

Physiotherapy is a primary care, autonomous, client‐focused health profession dedicated to:

Improving and maintaining functional independence and physical performance,
Preventing and managing pain, physical impairments, disabilities and limits to participation; and
Promoting fitness, health, and wellness.

Physiotherapy’s unique contribution to health care stems from its advanced understanding of how the body moves, what keeps it from moving well and how to restore mobility.

Physical therapy (also known as physiotherapy) is a health profession concerned with the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of disease and disability through physical means. It is based on principles of medical science and is generally held to be within the sphere of conventional (rather than alternative) medicine. Physiotherapy is practiced by physiotherapists (also known as physical therapists). Physiotherapy originated from massage performed by nurses at the end of the 19th century. Nowadays it is a branch of rehabilitative health that uses specially designed exercises and equipment to help patients regain or improve their physical abilities. It is a distinct form of care which can be performed both in isolation or in conjunction with other types of medical management. Used in conjunction with certain medical or surgical techniques, physiotherapy can complement these techniques to help provide a speedy and complication-free return to normal activity.

Physiotherapy goal is to enhance a life through improved health and fitness, by encouraging a person to take charge of the health and teaching techniques for recovery, pain relief, injury prevention, and improved physical movement. The core skills of physiotherapists include manual therapy, therapeutic exercise and the application of electrophysical modalities. Physical therapists work with many types of patients, from infants born with musculoskeletal birth defects to adults suffering from the back pain or the defects after injury, to elderly post-stroke patients. Many physiotherapists also work with sports people.