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On 29 December 2023, it was proposed that this article be moved to Physiotherapy. The result of the discussion was not moved. |
The result of the move request was: not moved. (
closed by non-admin page mover) –
Hilst
[talk]
11:53, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
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:
The two major reasons for change are
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:
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)
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.
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)
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:
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.
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)
Because Indian editors often come here and try to change this content, this has to be said clearly:
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)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Physical therapy article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find medical sources: Source guidelines · PubMed · Cochrane · DOAJ · Gale · OpenMD · ScienceDirect · Springer · Trip · Wiley · TWL |
Archives: 1 |
This
level-4 vital article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Ideal sources for Wikipedia's health content are defined in the guideline
Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine) and are typically
review articles. Here are links to possibly useful sources of information about Physical therapy.
|
This article is prone to spam. Please monitor the References and External links sections. |
On 29 December 2023, it was proposed that this article be moved to Physiotherapy. The result of the discussion was not moved. |
The result of the move request was: not moved. (
closed by non-admin page mover) –
Hilst
[talk]
11:53, 12 January 2024 (UTC)
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:
The two major reasons for change are
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:
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)
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.
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)
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:
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.
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)
Because Indian editors often come here and try to change this content, this has to be said clearly:
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)