Bahrain NHRA Physiotherapist key terms

The range of assessment, treatment, and advisory activities a licensed physiotherapist is legally and professionally permitted to perform in a given jurisdiction, defined by national regulation, entry-level education, and demonstrated competence.

A patient's voluntary agreement to assessment or treatment after receiving understandable information about purpose, expected benefits, risks, alternatives, and the right to refuse or withdraw at any time.

The professional duty to keep personal health information private, sharing it only with authorised team members involved in care or when legally required, and storing records securely.

Contemporaneous written or electronic records of assessment findings, treatment provided, patient response, and onward plans, forming a legal record and supporting continuity and quality of care.

Clinical decision-making that integrates the best available research evidence, the therapist's expertise, and the individual patient's values, preferences, and circumstances.

Systematically developed statements that advise clinicians and patients on appropriate care for specific conditions, usually graded by strength of supporting evidence and updated periodically.

Agreed routes by which patients move between physiotherapy and other services, such as general practice, orthopaedics, or neurology, including criteria for referral, urgency, and required information.

Standardised, validated tools or scales used before and after intervention to quantify change in impairment, activity, or participation, enabling objective evaluation of treatment effect.

The smallest change in an outcome score that a patient would perceive as beneficial, used to judge whether a measured improvement is meaningful rather than merely statistically significant.

A questionnaire completed by the patient to rate symptoms, function, or quality of life from their own perspective, complementing clinician-measured findings.

A World Health Organization framework describing health and disability across body functions and structures, activities, participation, and contextual environmental and personal factors.

A loss or abnormality of body structure or physiological or psychological function, such as reduced joint range, muscle weakness, or sensory loss.

Difficulty an individual experiences in executing a task or action, such as walking, dressing, or climbing stairs, as described in the functioning framework.

A problem experienced in involvement in life situations, such as work, school, family roles, or community activities, often shaped by environmental barriers.

Skilled hands-on techniques such as mobilisation, manipulation, and soft tissue work applied to joints or muscles to reduce pain and improve movement, usually combined with exercise and education.

Passive, graded oscillatory or sustained movements applied to a joint within or at the limit of its available range to modulate pain and restore mobility.

The quality of resistance felt by the examiner at the end of a joint's passive range, such as bony, capsular, springy, or empty, which helps identify the tissue limiting movement.

The extent of movement available at a joint, measured actively by the patient or passively by the examiner, usually recorded in degrees with a goniometer.

An ordinal scale from zero to five describing the force a muscle can generate, from no detectable contraction through full resistance, assessed manually or with dynamometry.

Strength training in which load, repetitions, or difficulty is systematically increased as adaptation occurs, guided by the overload principle and the patient's tolerance and goals.

Clinical signs or symptoms suggesting serious pathology such as fracture, infection, malignancy, or cauda equina syndrome, requiring urgent medical review rather than routine physiotherapy.

Pain caused by a lesion or disease of the somatosensory nervous system, often described as burning, shooting, or electric, with possible numbness, tingling, or hypersensitivity.

A condition in which a spinal nerve root is compressed or inflamed, producing pain and neurological signs such as weakness, sensory change, or reduced reflex in a specific distribution.

The area of skin supplied by sensory fibres from a single spinal nerve root, mapped to help localise the level of nerve involvement in neurological examination.

The group of muscles innervated by a single spinal nerve root, tested by resisted isometric contraction to identify the level of nerve involvement.

Increased responsiveness of nociceptive neurons in the central nervous system to normal or subthreshold input, contributing to widespread pain, hypersensitivity, and persistent pain states.

Exercise approach that teaches patients to recruit and coordinate muscles with correct timing and alignment, often starting with low-load, precise activation before progressing to functional tasks.

The nervous system's capacity to reorganise its structure and function in response to experience, learning, injury, or rehabilitation, forming the basis of recovery after neurological damage.

Rehabilitation that practises the actual functional activity the patient needs to regain, such as stepping, reaching, or dressing, rather than isolated muscle actions alone.

An intensive approach in which the less affected limb is restrained while the more affected limb is repeatedly trained on functional tasks, aiming to overcome learned non-use.

A velocity-dependent increase in muscle tone caused by hyperexcitability of the stretch reflex after upper motor neuron lesions, often interfering with movement and care.

A six-point clinical rating of resistance felt during passive movement, used to grade the severity of spasticity from no increase in tone to rigid limb.

Damage to motor pathways above the anterior horn cell, producing increased tone, hyperreflexia, extensor plantar responses, and weakness, as seen after stroke or spinal cord injury.

Damage to the anterior horn cell, nerve root, or peripheral nerve, producing flaccid weakness, reduced tone, muscle wasting, and diminished reflexes.

A standard scoring system from three to fifteen combining eye opening, verbal response, and motor response, used to quantify level of consciousness and detect deterioration.

A standardised instrument scoring independence in self-care, mobility, communication, and cognition, widely used to track rehabilitation progress and plan discharge.

A fall in blood pressure on moving from lying or sitting to standing, causing dizziness or fainting, common after spinal cord injury, prolonged bed rest, or in older adults.

Graded exposure to upright posture, such as progressive sitting, tilt-table use, or compression garments, to improve blood pressure regulation and tolerance of standing.

Selection and fitting of walking aids or wheelchairs matched to the patient's strength, balance, endurance, environment, and goals, with training in safe technique.

A fourteen-item performance test scoring static and dynamic balance tasks out of fifty-six, used to quantify fall risk and balance change in neurological and older populations.

The subjective sensation of uncomfortable breathing, assessed by severity, triggers, and impact on activity, and managed through positioning, pacing, breathing techniques, and exercise.

A breathing technique with a slow nasal inspiration and prolonged expiration through pursed lips, which helps prevent airway collapse and reduces breathlessness in obstructive lung disease.

An airway clearance method combining breathing control, thoracic expansion exercises, and huffing or coughing to mobilise and clear secretions without excessive fatigue.

Positioning the patient so gravity assists mucus movement from specific lung segments toward the larger airways, usually combined with percussion, vibration, or breathing exercises.

A group of techniques and devices used to help patients with excessive or retained secretions expectorate effectively, chosen according to condition, ability, and preference.

A submaximal exercise test measuring the greatest distance walked on a flat corridor in six minutes, reflecting functional exercise capacity in cardiopulmonary disease.

A supervised programme of exercise training, education, and self-management for people with chronic lung disease, improving breathlessness, exercise tolerance, and quality of life.

A structured programme of exercise, risk-factor education, and psychological support after a cardiac event or in stable heart failure, delivered in phases from hospital to community.

A patient's self-rating of effort during exercise, commonly on a six-to-twenty or zero-to-ten scale, used to set and progress safe exercise intensity.