The Intersection of Movement and Clinical Reasoning: Embodying "Body as a Teacher" to Advance the Profession and Practice.

Abstract

Establishment of the physical therapist as the movement specialist to attend to the public's participation restrictions has been advocated through the vision of the American Physical Therapy Association. Important to this vision is the physical therapist's unique use of movement and clinical reasoning. Yet, there is little known about movement and its intersection with a physical therapist's clinical reasoning. How are physical therapists to achieve the transformation of society by optimizing movement if the role of movement has not been explicitly described, and richly explored, in our core skill of clinical reasoning? In all areas of the profession (research, education, and clinical practice), knowledge is needed to develop an explicit understanding of movement and the impact that movement has on the therapist's clinical reasoning. This point of view is a call to action for the profession to elucidate steps necessary to claim movement, holistically, as the theoretical basis for physical therapist practice and as a critical source of information for clinical reasoning.