The Master’s Degree in Physiotherapy of the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE) was recommended by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) in July 2008. The program’s main focus area is “Physiotherapy in Health Care,” with its guiding principle based on new concepts and discussions involving the health process. An understanding of this process, which is based on the organization of societies and human relations within their environment, goes beyond the “absence of disease” discourse.

Currently, the implementation of new healthcare models has required training to enable professionals to act at all levels and stages of the health/disease process. The proposal is to consolidate a program in which the health process, and not just the disease, is the object of interest in investigations. Thus, the intention is to insert new professionals in the scientific and academic environment to expand the health paradigm, break the limits of curative care, and increase research development at all levels and stages of human healthcare, thus contributing as an instrument of change in the area of action.

In this context, two search lines were created: instrumentation and physiotherapeutic intervention, and physiotherapy, physical-functional performance and quality of life; both were designed bearing this thought in mind and based on the teaching staff experience.

The program is focused on:

• Training human resources in the field of physiotherapy, by improving the development of teaching and research capacity in several aspects related to physiotherapy;
• Developing and consolidating specific research lines in the field of physiotherapy;
• Promoting the qualification of professionals and researchers in the field of physiotherapy;
• Encouraging production and exchange between the department of physiotherapy and other UFPE departments, as well as with other higher education institutions;
• Increasing the interaction between undergraduate teaching and graduate research activities in physiotherapy; and
• Developing research capacity to validate the effectiveness of new evaluation techniques and strategies in physiotherapeutic interventions.

Concentration area

Physiotherapy in healthcare

 

Research lines

Instrumentation and physiotherapeutic intervention: The objective of this research line is to study the methods and resources used in physiotherapeutic interventions—at an individual and collective level—that involve the prevention, evaluation, and treatment of organic dysfunctions, as well as to analyze the influence of risk factors on the onset of diseases. Another objective of this line involves the construction, application, and improvement of evaluation and treatment instruments used in the field of physiotherapy.

Physical performance and quality of life: The objective is to investigate the physical functional performance and behavior of healthy subjects of all ages (children, adults, and older) with dysfunctions—at an individual and collective level—and to evaluate the effects of their nutritional status on motor and postural performance. This line of research also investigates physiotherapy provision in public health services, while considering factors that may interfere in people’s quality of life.