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Physiotherapist

Helps patients recover movement and function after injury, surgery, or disability.

Did you know?

Hippocrates, the ancient Greek doctor born around 460 BC, is believed to have used massage, manual therapy and hydrotherapy, early forms of physiotherapy.

How subjects help

• Biology: Understand how torn muscles and tendons repair so you can pace a patient's recovery.
• Physics: Use levers and forces to plan exercises that strengthen a knee without overloading it.
• Anatomy: Find which muscle or joint is causing a patient's back pain by pressing and testing.
• Sports Science: Build a step by step training plan to get an injured athlete back on the pitch.

A famous name

Elizabeth Kenny: Australian nurse whose muscle exercises for polio patients helped lay the foundations of physiotherapy.

Try it yourself: Test your balance like a physio

1. Stand facing a wall with your fingertips resting on it. Lift one foot and hold for 5 to 10 seconds, keeping your hips level. Do it three times on each leg.
2. Walk heel-to-toe along the wall for at least five steps, putting each heel right in front of the other toes and looking ahead.
3. Try the one-leg stand again with your fingertips barely touching the wall, and time how long you last on each leg.
4. Write down which leg is steadier and which move felt hardest.

Physiotherapists and occupational therapists use simple balance tests like these to measure how someone is recovering and to plan their exercises.

Adapted from NHS: Balance exercises.

Also try: Which material stops sound best?.

Known for it in

Australia, Canada, UK, Netherlands, Denmark

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