Since 1996, the world has celebrated Physiotherapy Day to commemorate and celebrate the hard work of physiotherapists. Physical therapy is a form of maintenance and restoration of bodily movements. Physiotherapists play a vital role in healing a patients’ strain and in post-surgery recovery. This year’s theme highlights the role physiotherapists played in rehabilitation and long COVID.

The day was promoted by World Physiotherapy, an international organisation voicing and representing 6,25,000 physiotherapists from over 120 countries. World Physiotherapy has been collaborating with World Health Organisation (WHO) in promoting and campaigning for improved global health.

The Indian Association of Physiotherapists (IAP) has been organising webinars and campaigns in more than 30 Indian states and UTs with 250 districts. Last year on World Physiotherapy Day, they set a record of conducting the ‘Most Number of free live international webinars’. The event was roughly 215 hours long and saw the participation of 3445 people from across 26 countries.

Importance of Physiotherapy

Physiotherapy or Physical therapy helps individuals overcome their physical injuries or illness and start flexing their body the way they want. With physiotherapy, we can restore body movements to pre-injury level and adds to our overall well being. With the help of manual therapy, we can add strength to post-surgery joints and muscles. It also adds speed to your recovery. After a stroke, physiotherapy helps gain balance and movement. This form of therapy is widely used in sports as players are at constant risk of pulling their muscles.

Shortage of Physiotherapists

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), there should be one physiotherapist for every 10,000 citizens. But in India, the entire population has a mere 5000 physiotherapists. We need an additional 1.4 lakhs to suffice the demand and supply gap.

Karen Warren - “Structure without function is a corpse.”