Advanced practice physiotherapy is changing how patients access specialist assessment, diagnosis and care, from hospital emergency departments to specialist services. As these roles become more established across Australia, a national competency framework and emerging titling pathway are creating opportunities to recognise clinical expertise, strengthen career progression and rethink how physiotherapists can contribute to health service delivery.

Lowana Williams, Senior Policy Advisor in the APA Policy and Government Relations team, provides an update on ongoing work to enable physiotherapy endorsement for scheduled medicines.

PHYSICAL ACTIVITY Recommendations on assessing, prescribing and promoting physical activity in clinical practice have been recently published as an international consensus statement. Consensus member Professor Maria Constantinou talks about the recommendations.

When Benjamin Gold’s wife Nicole Iglicki was diagnosed with breast cancer just before the COVID-19 pandemic, their lives became dominated by hospitals, surgery and chemotherapy. Nicole’s having to travel to care when she was feeling low sparked an idea for Benjamin: what if cancer rehabilitation and allied healthcare could come to the patient?

The recent launch of the updated Stroke Clinical Care Standard, coupled with the Stroke Foundation’s Living Clinical Guidelines for Stroke Management, provides Australian physiotherapists with a comprehensive, evidence-based framework for best practice care. Here, the two sets of recommendations are examined to understand how they work together and what physiotherapists should know about them.

Researchers are looking at the factors infl uencing the community’s use of physiotherapy services for management of temporomandibular disorders.

Jess Fenwick, Katia Gould, Blake Hort and Jarryd Croxford of the APA Occupational Health national group present five discussion points on the vital role physiotherapists play in return to work for injured workers.

Fifty years ago this month, Australian physiotherapists voted to repeal a 70-year-old ethical principle that prevented them from treating patients without a medical or dental referral. That landmark decision transformed physiotherapy in this country and paved the way for Australia to become a global leader in first contact physiotherapy. We look back at the people, politics and courage behind one of the most significant turning points in the profession’s history.