"My own way of moving" - movement improvisation in children's rehabilitation

This article investigates the ways that children with different motor disabilities move in an improvisational context. We developed and implemented a one-year long movement improvisation program in which 12 children with different motor disabilities participated in weekly sessions under the practical leadership of two dance teachers and the researchers. The project's theoretical perspective and research approach are based on a phenomenological perspective that emphasizes movement as a personal, relational, and expressive phenomenon. The empirical material was developed and created through close observation and consists of the researchers' kinaesthetically lived experiences, video observations, and logbooks from the weekly movement improvisation sessions. In the article, we present and reflect upon five episodes from one activity regularly performed during the year. The article shows that movement improvisation can, over a period of time, offer children with motor disabilities an opportunity to explore their personal ways of moving together with others. The analysis explores how and why the children gradually felt secure enough to throw themselves into exploring their own movement possibilities and how improvisation promoted their desire to keep on moving

A critical phenomenological investigation in the use of touch as “know how” in practical physiotherapy in primary care with children and adults

In this article, we examine the interactions between physiotherapists and patients in actual situations, focusing on how touch is expressed, what it may mean and how physiotherapists know (or do not know) when and how to touch. The empirical material is obtained from two Norwegian research projects. In both of them, the first author observed physiotherapeutic practice and conducted interviews with patients (children and adults) and physiotherapists. A phenomenological research approach was applied, and analysis of the empirical data was guided by the concept of bridling, implying adopting a questioning attitude and being open to that which presents itself and exploring its possibilities. Three processed excerpts from the empirical data are presented to illustrate how, in different ways, physiotherapists' expert knowledge about how to relate to and interact with individual patients is put into play and expressed in real physiotherapy encounters. Each excerpt is presented individually, followed by analysis. Our findings reveal aspects of the epistemology of physiotherapeutic practice to be intercorporal and illuminated by the concept and phenomenon of letting the other be

The fragile process of homecoming - Young women in recovery from severe ME/CFS

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Purpose: To explore the recovery narratives of 13 young women who had fallen ill with severe Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME), also known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), during childhood and adolescence, with the focus on what they had to say about their past experiences from the perspective of the present. Method: A qualitative narrative approach, informed by a phenomenological theoretical perspective, was adopted to explore what the women found significant and meaningful in their recovery process. Data analysis of in-depth narrative interviews was performed which are presented to readers through the stories of two particular participants. Results: The first story describes how one participant made a recovery by testing her body’s tolerance and working to create a more confident self. The second story describes a complex exploration of possibilities for action in recovery, along with a struggle to make sense of setbacks and hold on to what has been gained. Conclusion: Recovering from ME/CFS emerges as an inter-personal, contextual, fragile and nonlinear process of homecoming, based on gradually rising bodily based self-knowledge. Illness slowly fades away into the background, and there is the prospect of a healthier tomorrow.publishedVersio

Critical physiotherapy: a ten-year retrospective

Critical physiotherapy has been a rapidly expanding field over the last decade and could now justifiably be called a professional sub-discipline. In this paper we define three different but somewhat interconnected critical positions that have emerged over the last decade that share a critique of physiotherapy’s historical approach to health and illness, while also diverging in the possibilities for new forms of practice and thinking. These three positions broadly align with three distinctive philosophies: approaches that emphasize lived experience, social theory, and a range of philosophies increasingly referred to as the “posts”. In this paper we discuss the origins of these approaches, exploring the ways they critique contemporary physiotherapy thinking and practice. We offer an overview of the key principles of each approach and, for each in turn, suggest readings from key authors. We conclude each section by discussing the limits of these various approaches, but also indicate ways in which they might inform future thinking and practice. We end the paper by arguing that the various approaches that now fall under the rubric of critical physiotherapy represent some of the most exciting and opportune ways we might (re)think the future for the physiotherapy profession and the physical therapies more generally.Peer reviewe

"My own way of Moving" : The Movement Experiences of Children with disabilities

This dissertation is about how children with disabilities experience movement. Their experiences are investigated in different contexts; daily life, regular follow-up programs within health and habilitation services and in a movement improvisation group. Phenomenology constitutes the theoretical perspective and the applied methodology, which indicates that movement is understood as both a personal and an inter-subjective phenomenon. The empirical material stems from interviews and observations. Twenty-three children, between four and 12 years of age and their parents have participated. The children were recruited from two entities within the Norwegian specialist health services, one at a national level and the other at a county level. The inclusion criterion for children recruited from the national unit was that they be diagnosed with severe congenital heart disease, and for the children recruited from the county level unit that they have motor function disability and a desire to participate in a movement improvisation group with other children once a week over a period of time. The dissertation show how different contexts give different opportunities for movement experiences and expressions. It reveals that the knowledge children have with reference to themselves, their movements and ways of acting in different situations is extensive. This knowledge should be recalled in its full meaning within child habilitation

“This is not me” – A critical discussion about methodological issues concerning agency and participatory sense-making in qualitative research with children

Participatory sense-making and agency are important methodological issues in qualitative research, especially that involving children. In this article we investigate and discuss how agency unfolds in three specific situations as recorded in the reflexive notes of two of the authors regarding their research with children with various medical diagnosis and disabilities. Using a combined autoethnographic and enactive phenomenological approach, the authors explore three particular moments where child participants registered disagreement with, or rejection of, the application to them of prevailing notions of ‘disability’. On the basis of the findings, the authors argue that the process of implementing and performing qualitative research implies a process of participatory sense-making in which participants’ multi-level agentic capacity is the basis for understanding one another’s gestures and vocal expressions. The article illuminates how different bodies enable different individual embodied, embedded, emotive and enacted agentic expressions, and how power, understood as an extended agentic capacity, circulates in the co-existence between child and researcher in qualitative research. Researchers are urged to develop the willingness and ability to ‘dis-place’ themselves when working with child participants, so as to move towards the child with interest, respect, and openness to learning from them

“This is not me” – A critical discussion about methodological issues concerning agency and participatory sense-making in qualitative research with children

Participatory sense-making and agency are important methodological issues in qualitative research, especially that involving children. In this article we investigate and discuss how agency unfolds in three specific situations as recorded in the reflexive notes of two of the authors regarding their research with children with various medical diagnosis and disabilities. Using a combined autoethnographic and enactive phenomenological approach, the authors explore three particular moments where child participants registered disagreement with, or rejection of, the application to them of prevailing notions of ‘disability’. On the basis of the findings, the authors argue that the process of implementing and performing qualitative research implies a process of participatory sense-making in which participants' multi-level agentic capacity is the basis for understanding one another’s gestures and vocal expressions. The article illuminates how different bodies enable different individual embodied, embedded, emotive and enacted agentic expressions, and how power, understood as an extended agentic capacity, circulates in the co-existence between child and researcher in qualitative research. Researchers are urged to develop the willingness and ability to ‘dis-place’ themselves when working with child participants, so as to move towards the child with interest, respect, and openness to learning from them

Physiotherapy in School Health Services for Adolescents – Perspectives and Practice

Introduction: Today there is an expressed concern for children’s and adolescent health, and the fact that many students do not complete highschool. In order to meet these challenges, school health services need to be strengthened and multidiciplinary teams developed. Main part: Describing the health challenges of adolescents today, and also different understandings of body and health, we discuss, based on a phenomenological perspective, physiotherapists’ possible understanding and competence in meeting young people’s health challenges. Bodily expressions can be said to be characterized by contradictions, which cannot be reduced to a simple question of inactivity and obesity. What possibilities can be given to youth, enabling them to live their bodies changing towards adulthood, – and how can physiotherapists contribute to this process? Conclusion: What opportunities can be given in order to enable young people to live their changing bodies towards adulthood? How can physiotherapists contribute to this process? In our opinion, physiotherapists’ knowledge about body and movement related to experiences, health, participation and function in the broadest sense, is a way of strengthening the multidisciplinary team in school health care, both in prevention and health promotion activities for youth

Characteristics, course and outcome of patients receiving physiotherapy in primary health care in Norway: design of a longitudinal observational project

Background Physiotherapists (PTs) in primary health care manage patients with large variation in medical diagnosis, age, functional status, disability and prognosis. Lack of knowledge and systematically collected data from patients treated by PTs in primary health care has prompted this longitudinal observational physiotherapy project. This paper aims to describe a method for developing a database of patients managed by PTs in primary health care, with the main purpose to study patients’ characteristics, treatment courses and prognostic factors for favourable outcome. Methods This is a longitudinal observational project, following patients through their physiotherapy treatment periods in primary health care in Norway and until one year after inclusion. The project involves both private practitioners and municipally employed PTs working in primary health care in nine municipalities in Norway. The patients are recruited to three different cohorts depending on age and whether they are referred to a private practitioner or a municipally employed PT. All data are recorded electronically, transferred and stored securely. For all patients we have included extensive questionnaires to obtain information about demographics, disability and function, pain-related variables, psychosocial factors, treatments and evaluation of treatment as well as response to clinical tests. The PTs have access to use their own patients’ data. We have also prepared for linkage to national patient registers and data collected in population-based studies to be able to gather further important data. Discussion This project will have important implications for physiotherapy services in primary health care. The database contains more than 3000 patients, and data collection is ongoing. Data collected so far suggest that the patients included are representative of the larger population of patients treated by private practitioners or municipally employed PTs in Norway. This large scale prospective physiotherapy project will provide knowledge about the patient groups, applied treatments and short- and long-term outcome of the patients. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03626389 . Registered on August 13th 2018 (retrospectively registered)