Talk:Physical therapy

Requested move 29 December 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) – Hilst [talk] 11:53, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

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Physical therapy → Physiotherapy – I have come to see that time changes things and believe the profession's choice should be respected. The World Confederation for Physical Therapy (note it is now a redirect) has even changed its name to World Physiotherapy because of confusion over terminology and the number of people using the terms.

Here are some links that discuss the title change:

• New brand and website for global physiotherapy body
• WCPT to Change Name

The two major reasons for change are

1. brand confusion
2. "The majority of our member organisations use physiotherapy and physiotherapist to describe the profession and the people who work in the profession."[1]

Those are good enough reasons for me to support a move from Physical Therapy to Physiotherapy.

There are two name change discussions in the archives:

• Geographic scope: Title change
• Support "Physical Therapy" as the title of the article.

I am a retired PT, and under my previous username of Fyslee, I supported keeping "Physical Therapy" as the title. I have changed my mind. The profession's choice should be respected.

While a search for the two terms in English will show that "Physical Therapy" is used more in English than "Physiotherapy" (Americentrism at play in searches!), we need to ask ourselves whether we want to document reality ("The majority of our member organisations use physiotherapy and physiotherapist to describe the profession") or just use of the word in English? English is not the sum total of reality. America's dominance in this area is apparent, as other English-speaking countries use Physiotherapy, and there are far more of them than there are Americans. This is an example where we need to assign proper due weight by reducing Americentrism.

Many languages use various forms of Physiotherapy that do not show in an English search. Fysioterapi won't show, and that's Scandinavia. Fisioterapia is Spanish. Many languages do this, and none of them will show up in an English search. Valjean (talk) (PING me) 02:42, 29 December 2023 (UTC) — Relisting. – robertsky (talk) 04:44, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Discussion

• Google Trends shows that there is no good possibility of WP:COMMONALITY here, as 98% of searches are for physical therapy in the United States. This points to a case in which we would normally retain the existing variety under WP:ENGVAR and WP:RETAIN. Further, we do privilege common usage over official titles or "the profession's choice" (which is actually divided here) under WP:COMMONNAME and WP:OFFICIAL. To answer the final question, usage in English is the only concern for article titling on the English Wikipedia; whether the topic is a single word in foreign languages is not relevant (WP:EN). Dekimasuよ! 06:43, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose. Dekimasu hits all the key points. we do privilege common usage over official titles or "the profession's choice". :-) RudolfoMD (talk) 20:45, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
  • And that is irrelevant to this discussion, as I have pointed out below. The assumption that "physical therapy" is the common name and "pysiotherapy" the official one is a purely American assumption and is not the case from a worldwide perspective. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:41, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

    Wrong. Google Trends shows that overall, physical therapy is the dominant term, "from a worldwide perspective". Argue under your own !vote. RudolfoMD (talk) 07:01, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

    It doesn't show anything of the sort. And I can post a comment wherever I choose. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:25, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Support or Oppose

Note: WikiProject Medicine has been notified of this discussion. – robertsky (talk) 04:44, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Health and fitness has been notified of this discussion. – robertsky (talk) 04:45, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Disability has been notified of this discussion. – robertsky (talk) 04:45, 5 January 2024 (UTC)

• Oppose per Dekimasu. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 17:28, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
• oppose per Dekimasu--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:56, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
• oppose per Dekimasu. Bensci54 (talk) 18:05, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose per Dekimasu (following the herd). Randy Kryn (talk) 00:22, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose WP:COMMONNAME policy is pretty clear that common usage is prioritized over scientific names. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 11:23, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
• Support. "Physical therapy" is clearly preferred in the USA, but "physiotherapy" is understood. However, "physiotherapy" (or "physio") is used pretty much exclusively in the UK and most people probably wouldn't know what "physical therapy" even was (although they could probably work it out from the context). "Physiotherapy" also appears to be preferred in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, etc. Per WP:COMMONALITY therefore, "physiotherapy" should be preferred. Much has been made above of "physical therapy" being common usage, whereas "physiotherapy" is official usage, with WP:COMMONNAME vs WP:OFFICIALNAME being implied. However, this only appears to be the case in the USA. Elsewhere, "physiotherapy" is both official and common usage. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:58, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Regardless of which is more common outside of the Untied States, we have WP:ENGVAR and WP:RETAIN. "Physiotherapy" seems extremely rare in U.S. English, so there doesn't seem to be an opportunity for WP:COMMONALITY. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 16:36, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

If American physiotherapists actually call themselves physiotherapists, I'm not sure it can really be classed as "extremely rare"! -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:01, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

As far as I know, it would be rather rare to find that. Do you have evidence otherwise? The term "physical therapy" is clearly dominant in the U.S. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 03:27, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

My mistake. I was under the impression that the above suggested the American profession preferred the term as well. However, my comment about a fundamental misunderstanding in comments above that physical therapy is the common name and physiotherapy only the "official" name stands; this is not generally the case outside the US. -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:29, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, "physical therapy" is also very dominant as the official name, as well as being very dominant as the common name, in the United States. For example, the primary professional association is the American Physical Therapy Association, and its certifications are issued by the American Board of Physical Therapy Specialties, and the premier accreditation agency for U.S. degree programs is the Commission on Accreditation in Physical Therapy Education and the primary degree issued to practitioners is Doctor of Physical Therapy (and there have also been Bachelor and Master of Physical Therapy programs). American journals include the Journal of Neurologic Physical Therapy and Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy and Physical Therapy & Rehabilitation Journal. I searched the names of the accredited programs and degrees in several populous U.S. states (including California, New York, Texas and a couple others) and didn't find any that use the word "Physiotherapy". —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 03:10, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Further discussion of Americentrism in name

⁠BarrelProof and Necrothesp, I can't change the decision above, but we can continue the discussion here. The common usage in the United States is indeed "Physical Therapy". Nearly all other English language nations use "Physiotherapy", and most other languages that approximate these words adapt Physiotherapy to their own languages. Examples are found in Europe. The Scandinavian languages use "Fysioterapi". "Fisioterapia" is Spanish.

• Official list of member associations (Note these are translations into English, not necessarily the actual names in the language.)

Physical Therapy is an Americanism, and Americans tend to dominate everything. Yet the profession has chosen to not allow that domination and has changed the official name of the international body representing the whole profession. There Physiotherapy and Physiotherapist dominates. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:37, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

What's happened above is contrary to our efforts to get away from American dominance. The English language Wikipedia is not the American Wikipedia, but American dominance over search terms is obvious. We are supposed to reduce Americentrism. Unfortunately, above Americentrism has been reinforced. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 19:37, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

On the contrary, WP:TITLEVAR, MOS:ENGVAR and MOS:RETAIN are intended to prevent dominance by a single variety of English. You probably won't be able to convince people that those should only apply when the variety of English is not American (but feel free to try, although I suggest to do that on the talk pages of the policies & guidelines, not here). —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:33, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

⁠BarrelProof, I noticed your edits and wonder what source you have to not consider the WCPT/World Physiotheray as THE world body for the profession? I'm an old PT and have never heard of any other international organization for all PTs. That doesn't preclude the possibility of some rogue group trying to claim they represent all PTs in the world, but I have never heard of such a group. Have you? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:51, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned, no one has the right to claim they are the only group in the world who can speak for everyone in the world in any particular profession, and such a statement should definitely not be based on a self-published claim with no independent reliable sourcing. Of course, organizations love to say they are the one true voice and speak for everyone, but they have a promotional self-interest in making such claims. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 21:49, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Like it or not, that is the way all international organizations function, and in healthcare, the WHO is the de facto organization that functions as an umbrella organization for those bodies. World Physiotherapy is recognized by the WHO. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 22:09, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

⁠BarrelProof, you never answered my question above. What source do you have for not considering World Physiotherapy as the sole world body for the profession? In chiropractic, there are several international bodies because of their internal divisions and differing chiro-religious beliefs, but in PT there is only one international organization for all PTs. What source makes you doubt this? Can you name a competitor to WP? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:31, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Source citations are needed to support assertions of fact. No source is needed if no claim is made. I did not add any new claim to the article; I merely removed one. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 02:13, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Okay, so you didn't read the source, assumed you were reading unsourced content, and removed that wording. I have read the source and in this edit updated the ref, and included the Internet Archive version for today, with quotes. Now it is sourced content. I am not writing "sole", just writing "the". That's good enough, and the "sole" is in the ref for anyone to read. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 04:10, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Not so. Sources should be independent, not self-published and promotional. Please note that that article is already tagged (not by me) for needing additional sourcing and being written like an advertisement. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 04:19, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

See WP:ABOUTSELF. "The material is neither unduly self-serving nor an exceptional claim." In the absence of any independent RS that contradict their statement, it's good enough. Your opinion about the legitimacy or appropriateness of their claim is just your opinion and has no weight up against them, a very RS. The WHO recognizes World Physiotherapy as the only world body representing the profession and doesn't mention any other. Please stop this OR crusade. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 04:29, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

A claim of being "the sole international voice for physiotherapy" is obviously unduly self-serving and exceptional, so WP:ABOUTSELF does not justify making such a claim in Wikipedia's own voice. Apparently, WHO signed an MOU with World Physiotherapy to encourage collaboration and cooperate on mutual goals, but that does not mean WHO declared them to be the special and unique global voice of the profession. The citation you want to add about that MOU is also self-published promotional WP:PRIMARY material. You want us to reach conclusions about the importance of that MOU and what it means, but have provided no independent WP:SECONDARY or WP:TERTIARY sources. My removal of such stuff is not OR. The OR is its addition, not its removal. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 04:40, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

WP:TITLEVAR / WP:Article titles#National varieties of English distinguishes between titles and topics. It makes a difference between local/national titles and general/international titles:

• "If a topic has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation, the title of its article should use that nation's variety of English (for example, compare Australian Defence Force with United States Secretary of Defense)."

The professions of Chiropractic and Osteopathy are TOPICS that are strongly tied to the United States. Physiotherapy does not have such ties.

The TOPIC of Physical Therapy/Physiotherapy does not have "strong ties" to the United States. It's an international profession/topic. The TITLE Physical Therapy/Physical therapist does have "strong ties" to the United States. Physical therapy has roots back to the Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians, and in modern times formal educations were established in many countries. The roots of my school in Scandinavia started in the 1890s, with those educated there becoming the first physiotherapists in the country. The official title came later. I graduated as a Fysioterapeut (Physiotherapist), not a Physical Therapist.

"A survey took place after the GM in 2019 and 78 member organisation took part. 60% agreed World Physiotherapy would be more easily understood by government and educational organisations which will aim to raise the profile of the profession in new and exciting areas. Almost 60% agreed the new title more accurately reflects the activities of the profession on a global scale."[2]

This article is about the TOPIC, and the title should reflect "the profession on a global scale", not just an American scale. The decision above bows to Americentrism, and that is against our policy for the naming of TOPICS that do not have "strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation".

There are roughly twice as many who use some variation of the Physiotherapist title as those who use the Physical therapist title (mostly Americans): "There are 578,565 people employed [not all are PTs] in the physical therapy industry in the US as of 2022. Globally, there are 1,600,606 registered physical therapists."[3]

So an article about American PTs would use the American terminology, which is Physical Therapy. By contrast, a general article about the TOPIC, like this one, would favor the most common international spelling in English, and regardless of what that is, the section about the United States would use the American spelling, while other national sections would use the spelling favored in that nation, and that is nearly always some variation of Physiotherapy, a situation now recognized by the changing of the official title of the only international body representing all PTs, and World Physiotherapy is recognized by the WHO as that organization. For some reason, likely convenience and legal, they choose to use the WCPT name for legal affairs.

We need to treat the TOPIC in its international sense. PT is not an American profession. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 22:09, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

The topic does not have strong national ties to any particular countries. So it is reasonable for the article to be written in any variety of English. Wikipedia policies in such a case do not say to pick the most popular variety of English. They just say to retain whatever variety is used in the article. In this case, that is American English. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 23:18, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

We're talking about the title, not the language variant used in the body of the article. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 23:25, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

So we're talking about WP:TITLEVAR, right? Personally, I don't notice much of a difference between Wikipedia's policies and guidelines about titles and article body content, but if you do, then we can focus on WP:TITLEVAR. It is about titles, and it says that all national varieties of English are acceptable in article titles. The term physiotherapy is basically not used in the United States and is unfamiliar to the majority of people there. As noted by Dekimasu, people in the United States don't search for information about physiotherapy; they search for physical therapy. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 23:36, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Bingo! You have described the problem exactly. The problem is Americans and their search patterns. This is the article for the general topic, not the article for the American Physical Therapy Association. There the title and language are all American English, which is proper. This article is different. Here the most common term (when translated to English) used by most Physiotherapists and their national organizations should get the most weight, and they outweigh Americans 5 to 1:

312,716 / 1,600,606 = 1 / 5.1

In the United States, as of 2019, there were 312,716 licensed physical therapists.[4]

Globally, there are 1,600,606 registered physical therapists.[5]

Out of the 121 member organizations, one nation uses Physical Therapy exclusively, and nearly all others use Physiotherapy, although a few of them translate their name to English using Physical Therapy, regardless of what their language says. In spite of all that, you want to give Americans the most weight? That's a very heavy dose of Americentrism, even though this is not the American Wikipedia. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 00:54, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

BarrelProof is right about this. In the absence of very strong national ties (like the Secretary of Defense example) we just leave the article title at whatever the first user happened to pick. The Americans get Physical therapy, and the rest of the world gets Aluminium. Counting population like this is exactly the kind of thing the policy was written to avoid. MrOllie (talk) 01:01, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

You nailed it, even if you didn't mean to. The Americans (as in APTA) get Physical Therapy, and the rest of the world gets Physiotherapy. This article is not about American PT. It's about the whole world's PT. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:04, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

It is the same PT everywhere, but Wikipedia happens to use the American spelling. Just as the whole world's chips can be found at French fries. WP:ENGVAR is an important compromise with strong Wikipedia-wide consensus, it heads off a lot of tiresome arguments, as it should on this article. MrOllie (talk) 01:10, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

I understand you, and even though we don't agree on this point, I respect your opinion and bow to consensus. As you may have noted, I have not edit-warred. Carry on. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:16, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

India classifies Physiotherapy as an allied health profession

Because Indian editors often come here and try to change this content, this has to be said clearly:

• India's National Commission for Allied and Healthcare Professions includes the Physiotherapy profession in their official list of allied health professions (AHP).

This is in harmony with the practices of other nations, where all lists of AHP include Physiotherapy. If some nation specifically excludes Physiotherapy from their list, that can be mentioned under that nation's entry, but that does not change the general fact for this article. The classification of Physiotherapy as an AHP should not be removed here. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 14:43, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't see a reason you consider this "allied health profession" categorization to be important. Many articles about other professions that appear to be in the category (or excluded from the category) do not mention the category at all. The meaning of the term and the implications of using the term probably depend heavily on the country in which the term is being applied. The allied health profession article seems to have rather low quality, as it lacks clarity about this, and the sources on the subject don't seem very good. What is the point of saying that some professions are "allied health professions" and some are not? For example, why say that nursing and pharmacy and chiropractic care and clinical psychology are not AHPs but physical therapy is? What difference does it make? Who cares? —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 18:49, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Quite a few Indians and people from Pakistan and Arabic countries care. For years they have vandalized this article. I suspect part of the problem is language. They think that if a profession, in this case PT, is classified as an AHP, then it is not an independent profession. That's BS. In the case of India, they seem to be ignorant of what their own National Commission for Allied and Healthcare Professions says, as explained above. It contradicts what these vandals are always trying to do here. This section should be referred to when they try this. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 20:48, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

I disagree. I see no reason to mention this AHP concept at all, since it seems to have no clear meaning or implications, especially for most readers. If it has a meaning, the meaning seems to have something to do with the laws or healthcare systems of specific countries, so it should only be discussed in the context of a discussion of those countries, not in the lead section and especially not in the opening sentence. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 22:01, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

Well, you are the first one to propose such a thing. Maybe we could eliminate the mention in the lead and only mention it in the body. In fact, there is no mention in the body!!! That makes the mention in the lead illegitimate. I'll move it to the body right now. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 22:11, 13 January 2024 (UTC)

If people have a misconception about what an "allied health profession" is, then perhaps that misconception should be addressed in the article about "allied health professions" (AHPs), but I still see no reason to discuss whether physical therapy is an AHP or not within this article. The purpose of this article is to provide information about physical therapy, not about AHPs. I don't see why the concept of an AHP is important to providing information about physical therapy (although moving that discussion from the lead section into the article body is an improvement). —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 00:01, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

This has to do with our job here, which is to document the "sum of all human knowledge" (translated to English) about the PT profession that is written about in RS, and the fact that PT is classified as AHP is part of it. That's all. We don't write summaries here. We cover nearly everything. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:00, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

Not so. Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of all information. It avoids inclusion of WP:UNDUE, distracting and misleading information, striving to explain only what is needed for conveying a reasonable summary level of understanding of the topics it discusses. It does not try to include every detail. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 04:45, 14 January 2024 (UTC)