Physiotherapy

INTRODUCTION

Physiotherapy as a holistic healing method to achieve a healthier life has created a niche for itself as a leading health care system that improves health without the use of drugs or surgery. Physiotherapy (also known as Physical therapy) is defined as the assessment, evaluation, and treatment and prevention of physical disability, movement dysfunction and pain resulting from injury,

disease, disability, aging or other health related problems. A person who is engaged with these activities is known as physiotherapist. Thus physiotherapy is based on a detailed understanding of how the body works-posture, balance and movement, knowledge of diseases, injury and the healing process.

Physiotherapy career Physiotherapy jobs Physiotherapy Physiotherapy

Physiotherapy, as a profession, may briefly be defined as a science that seeks to alleviate movement dysfunction, to promote optimal health and functions of the human body. It involves the treatment of patients through exercise therapy and other therapeutic agents, including heat radiations, electricity, sound water and message, and is used to cure weak muscles, difficulties in the movement of shoulder and knee joints, paralysis, inborn and acquired deformities, gynecological ailments and other such disorders. It is one of the rapidly growing areas of medicine that involves heat radiations, massages, tractions, water therapy and diathermy. Patients with such problems are referred by medical practitioners to physiotherapists who then take on the responsibility of restoring them to health. The core skills used by physiotherapists include manual therapy, therapeutic exercise and the application of electro-physical modalities. Physiotherapists use various therapeutic intervention techniques to treat a patient. Some of them are Manual Therapy, TENS (Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation used to control pain), Ultrasound Technique, Electrical Muscle Stimulation, Manipulation, Acupuncture etc. Although the work of a physiotherapist may tend to be physically very strenuous as it involves physically lifting and supporting patients, their profession brings with it much satisfaction, since it involves relieving patients of pain and helping them recover from specific physical ailments.

Physiotherapy has many specialties including cardiopulmonary, geriatrics, neurologic, orthopaedic and pediatrics to name some of the more common areas. PTs practice in many settings, such as outpatient clinics or offices, inpatient rehabilitation facilities, extended care facilities, private homes, education and research centers, schools, hospices, industrial workplaces or other occupational environments, fitness centers and sports training facilities.

Career

• As physiotherapists can treat a wide range of disorders, they are highly in demand today making career physiotherapy very attractive. A physiotherapist could be employed in the following areas

• Rehabilitation departments.

• The central and state governments, municipal corporations and private bodies which includes Institute of the Physically Handicapped, medical rehabilitation centers, health institutions and defence medical establishments etc.

• Medical Institutions.

• Orthopaedic departments.

• Schools for the mentally retarded and physically disabled children.

• Physiotherapists can also opt for teaching.

• Establish private clinics of their own.

• The physiotherapists can opt for research and development works in the pharmaceutical companies and institutional laboratories.

• Others work in sports clubs or in industry, where they supervise gym activity, assess fitness levels, devise appropriate exercise programmes and advise on posture and lifting.

• Law - Retail Physiotherapy/Pharmaceutical Company Attorney

Famous Personalities

Bessie Blount was a physical therapist who worked with soldiers injured in W.W.II. Bessie Blount's war service inspired her to patent a device, in 1951 that allowed amputees to feed themselves. The electrical device allowed a tube to deliver one mouthful of food at a time to a patient in a wheelchair or in a bed whenever he or she bit down on the tube. She later invented a portable receptacle support that was a simpler and smaller version of the same, designed to be worn around a patient's neck. Bessie Blount was born in Hickory, Virginia in 1914. She moved from Virginia to New Jersey where she studied to be a physical therapist at the Panzar College of Physical Education and at Union Junior College and then furthered her training as a physical therapist in Chicago. In 1951, Bessie Blount started teaching Physical Therapy at the Bronx Hospital in New York. She was unable to successfully market her valuable inventions and found no support from United States Veteran's Administration, so she gave the patent rights to the French government in 1952. The French government put the device to good use helping to make life better for many war vets.
EUNICE D.INGHAM
Eunice D. Ingham (1889-1974) was a physiotherapist who developed the Ingham Reflex Method of Compression Massage (known today as reflexology) in the 1930s. Her books continue to be a source of instruction in the method. Reflexology is one of the most widely known hands-on practices and is taught worldwide. Her work initiated numerous other books and methods of reflexology

Mary McMillan, R.N (est. 1888-1936) was chief aide at Walter Reed Army Hospital in 1918, and director of physiotherapy at Harvard University Medical School from 1921 to 1925. She made significant contributions toward introducing massage as an integral part of rehabilitative physiotherapy, and was also director of massage and medical gymnastics at Children's Hospital in Portland, Maine. She was the author of Massage and Therapeutic Exercise (1925), and was elected as the first president of the American Women's Physical Therapeutic Association (later called the American Physical Therapy Association) in 1921. McMillan could be called the mother of massage in America.

Horoscope - Career for Zodiac Signs

So if you are ready to choose this noble career then just check out these sun signs which would best suit nursing.

Taurus

Cancer

Leo

Virgo

Libra

Scorpio

Capricorn

Aquarius

Pisces

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Institutes : Some of the prominent institutions offering courses in Physiotherapy can be had from the following links.. Click here for more information