Comparison of Proprioception and Manual Skills Between Physiotherapists and Other Healthcare Professionals

The proprioception refers to a person's awareness of the position, velocity, and weight of any body part in space. Proprioception consists of joint position sense and joint movement sense.Proprioception arises from the coordination of many different receptors, and it is assumed that these receptors are concentrated in muscles, tendons, joint capsules, and ligaments. Examples of proprioceptors include the golgi tendon organ, muscle spindles, pacinian corpuscles, and free nerve endings. Proprioceptive sense is closely related to many movements performed to perform daily activities. Proprioceptive sense is considered one of the most important resources in the development of task-specific neuroplasticity.The healthcare sector comprises individuals from many professional groups. Each professional group reaches professional competence by undergoing specific educational and training stages. Physiotherapists are one of these professional groups. To fulfill their professional duties, physiotherapists are expected to possess core competencies such as patient assessment using various manual methods, clinical decision-making, technical, communication, and therapeutic skills. Furthermore, a key difference distinguishing physiotherapists from other professions is their extensive manual contact with patients during assessment and treatment programs. Members of this professional group receive various training programs in manual therapy methods during their undergraduate studies. They undergo various qualifications that develop their manual skills and conduct assessment, treatment, and rehabilitation using various manual methods throughout their professional careers. The hand, with its complex structure, is one of the most prominent parts of the human body. Despite accounting for 0.6% of body weight and 2% of body surface area, the hand accounts for over 20% of the motor and sensory homunculus, demonstrating the importance and complexity of the hand's functional structure. The hand's ability to perform these complex skills depends not only on motor ability but also on two excellent sensory systems: proprioception and the sense of touch.It is thought that upper extremity proprioceptive sense and manual dexterity may vary among healthcare professionals. The literature primarily focuses on studies evaluating the proprioceptive sense and manual dexterity of dentists. However, it is noteworthy that studies have not compared the differences in proprioceptive sense and manual dexterity among healthcare professionals. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to compare proprioceptive sense and manual dexterity between physiotherapists and other healthcare professionals.