Physiotherapists’ conceptions of movement awareness– A phenomenographic study

Abstract

The phenomenon of movement awareness requires more attention to make it explicit in physiotherapy. The aim of this study was to explore the variation in physiotherapists' conceptions of movement quality, focusing on movement awareness. The informants were 15 physiotherapists from a variety of physiotherapy fields. We collected data through two group interviews and used the phenomenographic method to analyze them. Four themes emerged from the data: 1) Being in contact with one's own moving body; 2) Increased awareness of movement experiences; 3) Interrelationship between physiotherapist and patient; and 4) Better understanding of movement awareness. These themes varied by four descriptive categories of the movement awareness phenomenon: (I) Hesitation regarding own movement experiences; (II) Momentary contact with own movement experiences; (III) Presence in movement awareness and (IV) Better understanding of others' movement awareness. The physiotherapists' understanding of the movement awareness phenomenon widened through three critical aspects in the descriptive categories: Recognizing one's own movement awareness, Distinguishing one's own and others' movement awareness and New insights into implementing actions related to movement awareness in physiotherapy. These results can expand the understanding of the phenomenon of movement awareness among physiotherapists, although further research is needed.

Perceptions of learning and teaching human movement in physiotherapy: A systematic review and metasynthesis of qualitative studies

“…We also found two potential studies through a manual search. Six of the studies were from a clinician’s perspective and addressed the following themes: movement quality in autism (Bertilsson et al, 2022 ), the vocabulary of movement quality (Skjaerven et al, 2020 ), wearable devices (L. A. Simpson et al, 2021 ; Vaughan-Graham et al, 2020 ), children with cerebral palsy (Storvold & Jahnsen, 2021 ), and physiotherapists’ movement awareness (Ahola et al, 2022 ). In addition, one study was of a physiotherapy student and addressed a specific approach to the movement awareness learning domain (BBAT) of physiotherapy (Bravo et al, 2022 ) in the educational context.…”

Efficacy of basic body awareness therapy on functional outcomes: A systematic review and meta‐analysis of randomized controlled trials

“…Although a movement quality tool such as the Body Awareness Rating Scale- (Skjaerven et al, 2015) shows moderate associations with functional exercise capacity scores, it has either no or weak associations with pain symptom and QoL outcomes in people with long-lasting musculoskeletal disorders (Olsen et al, 2020). Moreover, despite the recognition by physiotherapists applying the BBAT methodology of the central role of movement quality in physiotherapy programs for patients with long-lasting musculoskeletal disorders, chronic pain and mental health conditions (Ahola et al, 2021;Albertsen et al, 2019;Kaarbø et al, 2018;Mitsue & Yamamoto, 2019;Skjaerven et al, 2020), there is a lack of unambiguous descriptions of movement quality and of instruments to measure it (van Dijk et al, 2017).…”

“…Whilst clinical practice and research is increasingly focusing on physiotherapy interventions improving the wellbeing in patients with chronic conditions (Ahola et al., 2021; Dragesund & Øien, 2020; Ekerholt & Bergland, 2021; Gard et al., 2020; Soundy et al., 2016), no meta‐analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) investigating the efficacy of BBAT in ameliorating a wide range of functional outcomes and quality of life (QoL) is available to date. Previous reviews and meta‐analyses (Bravo, Skjaerven, & Catalan‐Matamoros, 2019; Vancampfort et al., 2014, 2020) did investigate a wide range of body‐mind therapies such as yoga, Tai Chi, qigong, or mindfulness‐based interventions but did not have a particular focus on the BBAT methodology (Skjaerven et al., 2019).…”