That's the conclusion I reach when I ask my peers at work, writers on blogs and members of e-mail list-serves the following question...
"What is physical therapy?"
I usually get a strange look followed by a textbook answer along the lines of 'Physical therapy is the assessment and treatment of movement dysfunction...'
This answer strikes me as too wordy and rehearsed.
Physical therapy needs a better answer to that question.
I recently ran across this 'acid test' in the print version of BtoB: The Magazine for Marketing Strategists. The article was on the declining 'brand equity' of major United States airlines.
"The acid test, he said, is simply to ask what an airline stands for. “What does United Airlines stand for?” he asked. “If you have to stop and think for more than three seconds to find a single word to describe them, then they're a commodity.”
Physical therapy needs a single unifying theme that creates a wide economic moat that other professions cannot infringe.
That theme should be measurement.
Measurement leads to physical therapy diagnosis.
Physical therapy diagnosis is a prerequisite for the 'holy grail' of health care ...
prognosis
"How much will it cost?"
"How long will it take?"
What is physical therapy?
Physical therapy is measurement.
There! Passed the acid test.
