World Physical Therapy Day 2011 – Norway

The Norwegian Physiotherapist Association celebrated World Physical Therapy Day throughout the country in a number of municipalities and workplaces with posters, small exhibitions and physical therapy demonstrations.

Two other specific events also took place this year:

• In Bergen, Norway’s second-largest city, physiotherapists at Haukeland University Hospital organised a grand event, showing a wide range of their tasks and competencies such as physical activity, rehabilitation of burn patients and research.
• Since this was a local election year in Norway (elections were held on 12 September), the Norwegian Physiotherapist Association decided to stage, in co-operation with a number of patient associations, two local political debates in Oslo and Bergen in which physical therapy services to patients with chronic illnesses and other special needs figured prominently. Top local politicians were invited from across the political spectrum, to be challenged on the availability of municipal physical therapy services for those in most need of them, and the part physical therapy should play in Norway’s Co-ordination Reform, a major health reform aiming to better co-ordinate health sector efforts for more disease prevention, earlier treatment and better rehabilitation, by treating more people at the primary healthcare level, reducing the costly impact of lifestyle diseases, and generally putting more emphasis on prevention and health promotion.

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