Pathokinesiology--the clinical implications from a cardiopulmonary perspective.

Do we really need our own area of science or do we just want it? Do we have it, can we find it or create it, or are we just renaming areas of existing science and study and applying them to our framework? Are we prepared to modify our existing educational structure to reflect clearly this area of science: kinesiology-pathokinesiology from the cellular level to the person level to include all relevant systems? If we adopt the science of pathokinesiology as the basis for physical therapy, will that direct the physical therapists who execute and publish research studies evaluating the effects of positioning, postural drainage, or phase one cardiac rehabilitation programs to study patient populations rather than college student groups? We cardiopulmonary therapists can fit within this pathokinesiological framework if the profession is able to answer many of the questions raised in this discussion. Those answers should illuminate the best fit for the patient without discernable movement dysfunction after coronary bypass graft surgery or the patient with an abcessed right middle lobe of the lungs who has no increase in chest wall mobility after treatment but does demonstrate a decrease in temperature and improved chest roentgenogram findings. The overriding question that I have as a clinician is, does the term pathokinesiology help our professionalism or simply create a new and different framework within which we need to explain physical therapy once more to ourselves, the medical community, our patients, our reimbursers, and the public at large?