Thursday, June 10, 2021 at 12:15 pm
The COLEF Council reports that the Madrid Superior Court of Justice has made a ruling in favor of physical education teachers (people with a university degree in physical activity and sports sciences). They endorse their professional skills as experts in health-oriented physical exercise.
The statement was published with the Conference of Deans of Physical Activity and Sports Science (CAFyD Conference of Deans), the Spanish Association of Sports Sciences (AECD), the Committee for the Promotion of the Academy of Physical Activity and Sports Sciences (ACAFDE) and the National Association of Students of Physical Activity and Sports Sciences (Anecafyde).
In the mentioned document, they notify that Madrid Supreme Court of Justice Endorses degree competencies in Physical Activity and Sports Science (CAFyD) in relation to health-oriented physical exercise (STSJ 277/2021).
In addition, institutions express clearly and forcefully that professional persons who are experts in physical exercise are those who have a university degree in physical activity and sports sciences (teachers and teachers of physical sport), by applying the acquired competencies in their training, allowing them to graduate physical exercise in accordance with For the health status of each person.
The result was that the Chamber does not appreciate in any way that what is reflected in the aforementioned decision violates or invades the powers of physical therapy as a titled and regulated health profession. The work carried out in defense of competencies in the field of health incorporated in the degree decision in the sciences of physical activity and sport has been carried out so that the Supreme Court of Justice of Madrid, finally, dictates a ruling in support of the documentary evidence presented by him COLEEF . board: Expert report and technical report, last coordinated by Dr. Lydia Brie Alejo (Head of Physical Education and Sports for Health at COLEF Council).
On the other hand, the judgment states that “certainly in the case of university graduates in the field of physical activity and sports sciences (CAFD), we are not dealing with a regulated profession, nor within the framework of a health profession, so there is no one who can logically perform the functions of physical therapists whatever the demand They accept other parties in cars without being able to participate in the healing process of the injured person through therapeutic exercise.”
In this sense, it is possible to differentiate physical exercise (an adjunct to health therapies and which contributes to people’s health, with and without diseases) from kinesiotherapy (or, as physiotherapy organizations insist on calling it, a therapeutic exercise). This is how the Court itself re-poses this question: “We must start from the necessary difference between kinesiotherapy (i.e. a physiotherapy technique by which movement is analyzed, programmed and applied as a therapeutic procedure, enhancing the patient’s participation in the process) and physical exercise as a tool that allows healing or improvement in the physical condition of people, which also leads to a distinction between sports physical rehabilitation (adjuvant training for health therapies to maintain physical condition and effective post-injury treatment) and rehabilitation, which is done by a physiotherapist and to which study plans of both degrees respond “.
The organizations that signed the statement do not agree that the term therapeutic exercise (or similar) is used insofar as it is used to confuse the population about its true meaning, in an effort to claim the core competencies of physical activity science and sport (i.e. in relation to physical exercise) for professionals who do not have them. Namely, as the sentence indicates, “The methodology, technique, practice, tools and generally the form of falling into the field of health improvement differ among the occupations mentioned, preventing their overlap”.
The judgment notes that what professionals with a university degree in physical activity and sport sciences (teachers and physical sports educators) do is not “to facilitate treatment to third parties but have limited but sufficient knowledge of course to be able to graduate from exercise on the basis of a person’s state of health, required of Professional of this type (CAFD)”. This means that the competencies detailed in the degree decision in Physical Activity and Sports Science are not intended to capture the competencies of health workers, “but to acquire technical knowledge regarding health protection. Which undoubtedly affects education, physical activity and sport”.
Finally, the COLEF Council and the Conference of Deans of CAFyD, ACAFDE, AECD and Anecafyde call for respect between professions and professionals, not forgetting that physical exercise has no titles and that society must understand that the maximum experts in analysis, diagnosis, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation are professionals with University degrees in the sciences of physical activity and sports (teachers and teachers of physical activity). Knowing his turn, to work in multidisciplinary teams that, when necessary, the physician supervises the operation.
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