About this Research Topic

Background

Touch is a significant dimension of care within many health professions and is seen as one of the principle distinguish competencies of the physiotherapy profession. However, with increasing emphasis on academic, scientific and evidence-based approaches to inform and justify physiotherapy interventions in health care, the role of touch is problematic.
The innate sensuality and intimacy of touch has historically and culturally generated challenges for the profession and been subject of heated discussions. Touch between people carries many meanings and might be interpreted variously by the involved. Touch can be therapeutic, caring, nurturing, supportive, guiding, but also perceived as unwanted, invasive and inappropriate. In many ways, touch in therapy is clinically and ethically complex and need to be explored.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, digital teaching, practice and keeping distance have become standard. Does this mean the end of touch in physiotherapy, or will the meaning and justification of touch flourish and be revitalized in a post-pandemic future?

The use of touch is intrinsic to the practice of physiotherapy, and until recently, the discourse about touch within the profession has been grounded in biomechanical, objective and functional goals. However, there is increasing recognition that such positivist parameters which define and restrict the use and meaning of touch may be neglecting important dimensions of a person's experience of their body in illness, disability and loss of function. There is growing interest in understanding how a body and everybody may be affected by environmental (including nature, culture and technology), psychological, emotional and wellbeing factors. This knowledge opens up spaces for physiotherapists and other health care professions to similarly develop new approaches and understanding of how their touch may guide, influence and change not only physiological processes in the body but also emotional and psychological responses. The goal of this Research Topic is therefore to create a manuscript collection which in various ways examines the concept and phenomenon of `touch' in physiotherapy and health care in various ways.

We welcome contributions which examine both theoretical and practical perspectives about the tradition, the possibilities and the future of touch in physiotherapy/ health care.
- What is the role of touch in physiotherapy and health care?
- How is touch used as a form of communication and as a form of therapy?
- How can physiotherapists expand their understanding of touch?
- How might a revival of interest in touch spark shifts in the nature of physiotherapy and health care?
- When is touch guidance? Or therapy? Or restraint?
We also encourage discussion about the disruptive effect of the Covid-19 pandemic and how this has affected visions of the future meaning and use of touch in the practice and education of health care and the physiotherapy profession.

Keywords: Touch, physiotherapy, significance, practice, health care, health service, implementation science

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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