How does physics relate to physical therapy?

1 Answer
Dec 4, 2014

Physics is the study of matter, motion, energy, and forces. It includes concepts of gravity, electricity, magnetism, heat, light, and radioactivity.

Physical therapy is the treatment of the human disorders through physical motions of the body. It is typically used to help in the recovery from injury, surgery, or an impairment through the stretching or strengthening of parts of the body. These conditions typically involve muscles, bones, tendons, nerves, and skin.

One is manipulating physical objects with forces when doing physical therapy. The methods of physics are useful in understanding how much force a patient is able to exert or in measuring a range of motion. But mostly, the names for these two fields just share the same root word. They concern themselves with physical objects and the motions of those objects.