Hello Esther,

Sorry for such a delay. You bring up some good points regarding communication challenges between therapists. As far as age as being a constraining variable- it does seem so at times. However, in my experience both “younger” and “older” therapists may or may not know much about motor control or development. To be quite honest, I do at times jokingly stereotype older therapists as not knowing much of modern physical therapy. That they might still be so greatly influenced by Wikipedia reference-linkBobath/NDT, not be able to apply research to practice, being easily duped by fad treatments, and are really just practice as technicians. That being said, I’ve discriminated the same for new graduates or other younger therapists!

Theories and conceptual frameworks are vital in PT practice. If not how does one know what to do with a patient in front of oneself? You can’t know. You could defiantly guess. I find too much guessing going on and it’s disturbing. In clinical practice we should attempt to discriminate right and wrong practice, correct or incorrect, best or worst. Now if these terms are too moralistic or absolute let’s at least maintain an emphasis on objectivity and discriminate practices as more effective or less effective. Let’s get away from this sort of open minded and eclectic practice where everything goes and you can never be wrong because everything works because every patient is different.

What to you think?

Anyway, we’ll chat more about motor control theories and clinical conceptual frameworks.

Bobby