Ahhh fall ... the start of a new school year; a new schedule of class projects and activities both for those in academia who teach our graduate students and for those who are the parents of students still living at home. As with many other parents, for me, these class projects and activities are among the best opportunities to provide guidance to my teenager and to hear about what he is learning in school. Sometimes it goes in the other direction. This was the case recently when we made cookies for a school bake sale. As we mixed the ingredients, we talked about how all cookies share the same essentials: flour, sugar, water ... the sweet dough that makes a cookie a cookie. The differences come with the extra ingredients we add-chocolate chips, nuts, and raisins. These add different flavors, but without the cookie dough, there would be no cookie.

In many ways, cookie dough is to cookies, as the human movement system is to physical therapist practice.

Neurologic physical therapists easily recognize movement as an organizing construct in the realms of clinical practice, education, and research. We quantify movement in our examinations to evaluate body structure/function impairment and to assess limitations in the performance of activities. We analyze the way these impairments and limitations influence participation and quality of life. Through the various Neurology Section Evaluation Database to Guide Effectiveness (EDGE) taskforces that provide guidance for measurement of movement in persons with stroke, spinal cord injury, Parkinson disease, and vestibular dysfunction,1 the Section has been a leader in efforts to standardize the measurement of movement.

Beyond our measurement of movement in the evaluations that form the bases of our diagnoses, we estimate future movement capabilities in our assessments of patient prognoses. However, focus on movement as the foundations for diagnosis and prognosis are only the beginnings, as movement also forms the core of our interventions. As small examples, to reduce movement-related impairments due to muscle weakness, we apply resistance training to increase strength. To decrease movement-related activity limitations, we develop task-oriented training programs. To reduce movement-related participation restrictions, we appraise environmental barriers in the home and community to ascertain the most appropriate modifications and make recommendations that will facilitate ease of movement.

For decades, thought leaders in our profession have advocated that pathokinesiology be the construct around which physical therapist practice is organized. While some have focused narrowly on the musculoskeletal system,2 others have had taken a broader view that is more encompassing.3 However, recently, it has become more widely acknowledged that the focus on abnormal movements arising from pathology may also be too narrow. This focus fails to capture the reverse relationship, or kinesiopathology, wherein "movement that is excessive, imprecise, or insufficient contributes to the development of pathology."4 In neurologic physical therapist practice, we see numerous instances wherein the paresis associated with disorders of the central nervous system results in faulty movement patterns that lead to further dysfunction and pain.

With the inclusion of "movement" in the new APTA vision statement for the profession (Transforming society by optimizing movement to improve the human experience.), and references to "movement system" in the associated guiding principles, it became necessary to codify a precise definition of terms. Earlier this year, the APTA Board of Directors convened a work group to define the term "movement system." On August 14, 2015, the APTA posted online the definition5 that was developed by the work group and adopted by the Board of Directors. The online posting also includes a link to the accompanying white paper, titled "Physical Therapist Practice and the Human Movement System." This white paper explains that, to fulfill our commitment to society, the first guiding principle, "Identity," obliged a concrete, agreed-upon definition of the movement system. The white paper also affirms the foundations of the physical therapists' knowledge and skill base as experts in the human movement system.

Readers are encouraged to visit the APTA Human Movement System webpage5 and are also encouraged to champion the concept of the movement system as a unifying theme in the physical therapy profession. We can facilitate knowledge exchange with our colleagues in other professions, and thereby promote a universal understanding about movement as a physiologic system. One approach is to include the term "human movement system" as a component of our manuscripts and as a searchable key word. While this discussion has stirred our professional for decades, we are now poised to help our colleagues in other professions recognize that our expertise in the movement system is integral to optimizing human health, function, and the potential for participation, throughout our society.

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