Principles of rehabilitation and physiotherapy

The objectives of the course are:
- to define the concepts of disability and rehabilitation;
- to describe the origins and development of the profession of physiotherapist;
- to describe the organization of rehabilitation and the tools used in professional practice;
- to acquire a correct behavior within the rehabilitation and health structures in general;
- to describe the basic concepts of functional assessment and assessment scales;
- to list the main assessment scales used for monitoring the progress of the therapy or the appearance of side effects;
- to describe the concept of posture and postural passages and the main postures;
- to perform a functional evaluation of joints and muscles and of the nervous system in the normal individual;
- to list and characterize the energies used in physical therapy and describe their effects on the human organism;
- to define the operating principles of the most frequently used equipment in physical therapy and use them;
- to describe and know how to prevent potential damage to the organism resulting from the use of physical therapies.

By the end of the course the student must be able:
- to recognize and evaluate the disability;
- to know the ways in which the physiotherapist can perform rehabilitation;
- to recognize postural alterations;
- to be able to perform a functional assessment of joints, muscles and nervous system in the normal individual;
- to know the biological effects of physical energies and the application methods of equipment commonly used in physical therapy;
- to know the potential damages of physical therapies.