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The recent Hollywood blockbuster Jurassic World tells a story of how extinct species have returned to the present only to cause chaos and confusion. Unfortunately, this Hollywood fantasy is a reality within the world of physiotherapy with dinosaurs among us causing chaos and confusion.
The dinosaurs I am referring to are the many iconic, influential and idolised clinicians and researchers who, despite a new era in understanding pain and growing evidence of the biopsychosocial model, still stubbornly refuse to change their methods or mind-set, and continue to promote and teach outdated methods of assessment and treatment.
Much more than biomechanics
The dinosaurs, despite giving occasional lip service to the biopsychosocial paradigm, have no desire to support or promote it. They have vested interests in peddling snake oil treatments, and selling their courses and books that promise simple assessments and quick fixes, from realigning subluxed sacroiliac joints or twisted thoracic rings, to releasing psoas muscles or immobile kidneys.
The dinosaurs continue to worship predominantly at the altar of biomechanics and in the normalising of movement. They continue to teach the identification and correction of incomprehensibly subtle joint and muscle imbalances, …
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Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.