An upcoming summit will explore the implications and goals of recognizing the movement system as the core of physical therapist practice, education, and research. Meanwhile, here's some background to bring you up-to-date.

The first principle of APTA's vision for the profession—transforming society by optimizing movement to improve the human experience—is "Identity."^1,2 Within that principle, the movement system is called a "foundation" and "the core of physical therapist practice, education, and research."

Just as important, the movement system is meant to serve as a unifying term for a profession that some people within it believe is fragmented by practice setting (hospital, private practice, home health, academia, and so forth), patient population (geriatric, pediatric, and others), and even body part or function (musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, pulmonary, neuromuscular, and integumentary, for example).