Structuring Practical Knowledge of Physiotherapy to Assist Novice Physiotheraphists with Movement Analysis

Of the approximately 130,000 members of the Japan Physical Therapists Association in the 2021 survey, 41% are in their 20s. This increase in the number of young and inexperienced physiotherapists will risk a decline in the quality of physiotherapy. While it is widely known that a knowledge gap between novice and experienced physiotherapists exists, it isn't easy to show this in concrete terms. This study proposes a method of acquiring and sharing practical knowledge to support physiotherapists in improving their observation and logical organization skills. The proposed method established A Problem Based Physiotherapy Unit (PBPU) as a fundamental component of the words and phrases thought about during physiotherapy. A video of a gait was analyzed by several physiotherapists and obtained as a text. From the text, (1) PBPUs were extracted from the motion analysis using natural language processing technology, and (2) PBPU networks were created by organizing the dependencies in the texts using textbook knowledge. Data were obtained from 15 physiotherapists with 2 to 22 years of experience. From the movement analysis, 360 PBPUs were extracted, and then the PBPUs were manually linked by focusing on causal relationships. Segmentation and networking of movement analysis by PBPU clarified the structure of the chain of knowledge of physiotherapists. Differences in PBPU networks between novice and experienced physiotherapists were confirmed. The structured movement analysis confirmed the chain of knowledge. Based on this, it is a steppingstone for assisting novice physiotherapists.