Community physiotherapy or community-based physiotherapy

Dear Editor, The profession of physiotherapy gained recognition during the time of World War I,1 with services being rendered in acute-care as well as community settings. It can thus be inferred that physiotherapy services in and for the community could have begun as early as 1914. Since then, there has been ample research globally (developed world more than the developing) on this specialization of physiotherapy and the importance of the same need not be more emphasized. The terms “community physiotherapy” and “community-based physiotherapy” have been used interchangeably by many researchers, although the meaning of each is different. Based on the concepts discussed in the original paper2 and book on communitybased nursing by Hunt,3 this paper hopes to highlight the differences between community physiotherapy and community-based physiotherapy. In community physiotherapy, the emphasis is on the setting “where” the treatment takes place. As the name clearly suggests, it is physiotherapy services “in the community” as opposed to acute-care setting. The physiotherapist visits the patient in the community and offers treatment. Community could be the patient’s home or residential care facility where the patient resides. For instance, consider the case of a middle aged man admitted at a hospital for myocardial infarction. After completion of treatment, the patient returns home and is visited by the physiotherapist for further treatment and management. This is a classic example of community physiotherapy. Due to advances in technology and health care services, community physiotherapy could be easily incorporated into the long term management of patients in the community. Community-based physiotherapy is “how” the treatment takes place. It has nothing to do with the “setting”, but is merely the way of practice. Communitybased physiotherapy could be initiated at an acute –care HPP