physical therapy

noun

the treatment or management of physical disability, malfunction, or pain by exercise, massage, hydrotherapy, etc., without the use of medicines, surgery, or radiation.

the health profession that provides such care.

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Origin:
1920–25

Related forms

physical therapist, noun

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Physical therapy is always a great word to know.

So is quincunx. Does it mean:

a calculus or concretion found in the stomach or intestines of certain animals, esp. ruminants, formerly reputed to be an effective remedy for poison.

an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle.

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Collins

World English Dictionary

physical therapy

—n
	another term for physiotherapy

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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American Heritage

Medical Dictionary

physical therapy n.
Abbr. PT
The treatment of physical dysfunction or injury by the use of therapeutic exercise and the application of modalities that are intended to restore or facilitate normal function or development. Also called physiatrics, physiotherapy.

physical therapist n.

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"If psychoanalysis emerged just before World War I to deal with the repressions of Puritanism, the hedonistic age has its counterpart in sensitivity training, encounter groups, "joy therapy," and similar techniques that have two characteristics essentially derived from a hedonistic mood: they are conducted almost exclusively in groups; and they try to "unblock" the individual by physical contact, by groping, touching, fondling, manipulating. Where the earlier intention of psychoanalysis was to enable the patient to achieve self-insight and thereby redirect his life—an aim inseparable from a moral context—the newer therapies are entirely instrumental and psychologistic; their aim is to "free" the person from inhibitions and restraints so that he or she can more easily express his impulses and feelings."

-Daniel Bell