Yoga and physiotherapy: a speculative review and conceptual synthesis

This article presents the potential integration of yoga and physiotherapy when considering the essence of their underlying concepts. Within the scope of this article the existence of several similarities between these two 'concepts' has been suggested. Researchers, physiotherapists and their patients as well as yoga practitioners can obtain valuable and additional arguments through the cross-fertilization of ideas across presented studies united by shared, underlying concepts. The practice of yoga is based on the following assumptions: complexity and multidimensionality, various positive influences on an individual's wholeness through the mind, body, and the relationships between them. These assumptions may have the potential to contribute towards the practice of physiotherapy and its underlying principles. The essence of physiotherapy as a multifaceted process requires teamwork and efforts of various specialists like psychologists, sociologists, occupational therapists and nurses if patients are to benefit. Ideally, the physiotherapist should possess knowledge from these areas of science in order to professionally care about patients. Therefore, it can be suggested that basic similarities exist between yoga and physiotherapy in terms of mutidisciplinarity and complexity of holistic care. Such conceptual enrichment may be a useful source of inspiration for physiotherapists concerned about their patients' overall health on a daily basis. The authors emphasize the usefulness of yoga practice in clinical units and explain how the essence of Ayurvedic knowledge might be extrapolated and incorporated into theoretical principles of physiotherapy process. The justification of the studies included is also presented.