Physical therapists with prescribing rights - yes or no?

UK physiotherapists have won a long-fought battle to be able to improve their patients’ care by prescribing them medicines without needing a doctor to sign off their decision.

You can read the rest of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy's announcement here.

An issue that will arise a lot of discussion worldwide, for sure. There are a lot of things you can say against this decision, but of course a lot of things you can say to support it too.

For sure, this decision will give Physical Therapists an extra tool in their arsenal, which may be very effectively used for the good of the patient. At the same time, it may reduce the health care system costs, because it will give to patients direct access to a complete health care profession in the cases of simple disorders that need physiotherapy and do not require the physician's involvement.

The major argument against this, in my opinion, is the education and training a Physical Therapy student receives. With most of the educational programs being 3 years of mostly practical knowledge and Physical Therapy techniques, the Physical Therapists do not gain the required knowledge of the human organism. The average Physical Therapy student focuses mainly on the musculoskeletal, the nervous, the cardiovascular and the respiratory system - and very briefly. He/she does not know enough about the immune system, the endocrine system, the gastrointestinal system, and many other things that are of extreme importance in order to deeply understand the amazing human structure, such us embryology, histology, microbiology, pathology, etc. Moreover, there is no obligation for Physical Therapy graduates to work in a hospital or together with a doctor in order to gain experience in prescription.

The human organism is an extremely complex system, that amazes me every time I read about it. Just giving an anti-inflammatory drug or an analgetic may seem a quite simple thing, but I believe it is much more complex. A lot of things need to change in our educational system before this can become true for the good of the human being.

I have a lot of doubts on how inflammation is treated by our medical care system and how disease is perceived. I fear that this decision will make us - human beings - focusing more and more on "killing" the symptoms of our diseases, than on really improving our quality of life.

Spinal cord neurodynamics

A very interesting subject in neurodynamics is the points of convergence of neural tissue. In simple words, these points are the places in the body where two sides of the the neural tissue cord (either in the spinal cord or in the peripheral nerves) come closer to each other. This is happening when the therapist is extending of flexing the limbs or the spine. And this technique is believed that can play a major role in cases of pain due to nerves' compression somewhere along their course.

The following part is a very short part of Chapter 2 summary of “Clinical Neurodynamics” by Michael Shacklock. You can find a short summary of the whole chapter here, or you can buy the book here.

The spinal cord tends to move towards various specific segments. These areas are termed zones of convergence, and these areas include C5-6 and L4-5.  For example, tissues above C5-6 will slide toward this zone, as will tissues below this segment. The midpoint at which tissues diverge is at T6. At this point, tissues below T6 will converge towards L4-5, and tissues above T-6 will converge to C5-6.

Handicap International

What is Handicap International?

Handicap International is an international, non-governmental organisation, mainly known for its fight against anti-personnel mines and cluster munitions and helping the victims of these unexploded devices. However, its mandate has been extended over the years and today includes providing assistance through work in various fields for people in developing countries with other kinds of disability.

Handicap International primarily focuses on the prevention of disabilities and providing support for people with disabilities by ensuring they can fully take part in social life. The organisation’s interventions are not restricted to long-term development activities. Handicap International also provides support in emergency situations, for instance, in the aftermath of natural disasters and humanitarian crises. Its actions always focus on those suffering from disabilities.

The organisation works as far as possible with the human and material resources available in the country. Its projects are implemented in cooperation with local partners, the objective being to ensure their autonomy in the long-term. All of its actions concentrate on training, raising awareness and the involvement of local communities in its projects.

Antioxidants - too much of a good thing?

There is recently a lot of discussion done on the controversial effect of antioxidants on health. What is causing this discussion is the fact that the free radicals in our body (that were thought to be a danger for our health) are now found to play an important role in the defence mechanisms of it.

This article on medicalxpress.com discusses a new element on the effect of free radicals in our health. What is emerging is a new view that antioxidants are not a fix for everything, and that some degree of oxidant stress may be necessary for the body to work correctly.

Read it all - it is simple and very interesting.

MIT courses - online for free and from your home

“The idea is simple: to publish all of our course materials online and make them widely available to everyone.” Dick K.P. Yue, Professor, MIT School of Engineering

Have you ever imagined attending an MIT course for free and from your home? Now you can do it! Because MIT has created an online source of some of its most interesting and valuable courses in many different topics such as business, technology, medicine, arts, teaching and more.

Here are a few things to know about MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) before you begin:

There are more than 2,100 courses on OCW and you might want to begin your exploration in any of these ways:

• Find a course by topic or by department.
• Peruse courses on our Cross-Disciplinary Topic Lists: energy, entrepreneurship, environment, life sciences, and transportation.
• Browse through our other collections: Audio/Video Lectures, New Courses, Most Visited Courses, OCW Scholar, or Supplemental Resources.
• Check out our other featured site: Highlights for High School.