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An upcoming summit will explore the implications and goals of recognizing the movement system as the core of physical therapist practice, education, and research. Meanwhile, here's some background to bring you up-to-date.

Feature - Movement System

The first principle of APTA's vision for the profession—transforming society by optimizing movement to improve the human experience—is "Identity."1,2 Within that principle, the movement system is called a "foundation" and "the core of physical therapist practice, education, and research."

Just as important, the movement system is meant to serve as a unifying term for a profession that some people within it believe is fragmented by practice setting (hospital, private practice, home health, academia, and so forth), patient population (geriatric, pediatric, and others), and even body part or function (musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, pulmonary, neuromuscular, and integumentary, for example).

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  1. APTA House of Delegates. Vision Statement for the Physical Therapy Profession (HOD P06-13-18-22). Alexandria, VA: American Physical Therapy Association; 2013.
  2. APTA House of Delegates. Guiding Principles to Achieve the Vision (HOD P06-13-19-23). Alexandria, VA: American Physical Therapy Association; 2013.
  3. Physical Therapist Practice and the Human Movement System. An American Physical Therapy Association White Paper. Alexandria, VA: American Physical Therapy Association; 2015.
  4. Hunter S, Norton B, Powers C, Saladin L, Guccione A, Delitto, A. Rothstein Roundtable podcast-putting all of our eggs in one basket: human movement system [data supplement]. Physical Therapy. November 1, 2015. DOI: 10.2522/ptj.2015.95.11.1466. http://ptjournal.apta.org/content/95/11/1466/suppl/DC1.
  5. The human movement system w/ Dr Chris Powers [podcast]. Healthy, Wealthy & Smart. Episode 190; December 21, 2015. http://podcast.healthywealthysmart.com/category/episodes/page/2/.
  6. Wojciechowski M. The future of physical therapist education. PT in Motion. 2015;7(1):23.

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