Physiotherapists prescribe behaviours every day: exercise, walking, pacing, symptom monitoring, sleep routines and gradual return to valued activities. 

These recommendations may be clinically sound but they still have to survive real life. 

Every year on 8 September, World Physiotherapy Day celebrates the contribution physiotherapists make to improving health and wellbeing around the globe.

It is an opportunity to recognise the expertise, compassion and leadership of our profession while reflecting on how physiotherapy continues to evolve to meet today’s greatest health challenges.

This year is particularly significant. Following consultation with member organisations, World Physiotherapy has launched a four-year focus on non-communicable diseases, the leading cause of death and disability worldwide.

Krzysztof ‘Kris’ Grzywniak APAM does not fit the mould of the typical early-career physiotherapist. His journey into the profession was not a straight line from school to university to clinic. 

Dr Andrea Hams MACP is an APA Titled Research Physiotherapist, a lecturer at Griffith University and a former elite track and field athlete. 

She has a passionate interest in chronic musculoskeletal conditions and treatments with an ‘exercise-based flavour’. 

Dr Jillian Eyles APAM is a physiotherapist and a clinical researcher at the Kolling Institute in Sydney. 

Jillian is leading a project – along with colleague Professor David Hunter, a rheumatologist – that aims to reduce low-value care for knee osteoarthritis (OA). 

May is EDS and HSD Awareness Month. It is a time to raise awareness of the Ehlers-Danlos syndromes (EDS), including hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (hEDS) and hypermobility spectrum disorders (HSD). 

As the updated 2025 Falls Guidelines sharpen the focus on prevention, screening and targeted interventions, their real-world impact will depend on how effectively they are embedded into everyday clinical practice. 

With falls posing potentially life-changing consequences for older people, physiotherapists are uniquely positioned to lead prevention efforts through evidence-based assessment and tailored exercise programs that address balance and mobility.