INTRODUCTION TO THE PROGRAM

      The Graduate Program in Physiotherapy – PPGFis/UFPB began its academic activities in August 2019, and provide the community with Academic Master in Physiotherapy.
        PPGFis/UFPB has as its target-audience, the holders of an undergraduate diploma in Physiotherapy or correlated areas and with the general objective to promote the education of researchers with the gift for teaching, trained for the production of solid scientific and ethical knowledge based on the field of Physiotherapy. It also has as specific goals:

• To train, through education processes with high scientific, pedagogical, and ethical standards, physiotherapists capable of acting in the scientific and academic environment, based on the development of research and teaching activities aiming to transform the social context of its places of insertion through carrying out the qualified and aligned investigations with the scientific and technological innovations in the field of Physiotherapy.
• To generate qualified knowledge in Physiotherapy, contributing to the scientific, technical, and social development of the area, from evaluation and intervention processes in Physiotherapy in the individual and collective human performance and activity.
• To enhance the study of the human movement in individuals and collectivities, in all their forms of expression and potentialities (distinguishing their functions and malfunctions), aiming to prevent alterations, preserve, promote, and restore the integrity of the bodies and systems, and to improve the responses of Physiotherapy to the needs of the populations’ health.
• To develop knowledge, skills, and techniques that guide the process of physiotherapeutic care of the human being, in the individual or collective scope and the evaluation of the epidemiological impact on health policies, programs, and services regarding the populations’ life quality.
• To provide the integration of PPGFis/UFPB’s activities with those from the Undergraduate Program in Physiotherapy of UFPB, through the participation in students’ partnerships in these two levels of education in research (research groups, seminars, data collection and analysis, preparation of papers, among others), besides encouraging the graduate students to develop co-orientation activities of students carrying out their Scientific Initiation and Final Thesis in their Undergraduate Programs.

       As goals and experiences for the excellence of PPGFis/UFPB, it is worth mentioning the following: commitment to the development of local, regional, and multicentric research; the capture of resources from fostering agencies; the consolidation and strengthening of research groups and encouragement to joint (professors-students) and qualified (quails) productions; investment, consolidation, and institutionalization of PPGFis/UFPB’s internationalization through partnerships and exchange programs; maintenance and expansion of the permanent teaching staff.

FIELD OF CONCENTRATION AND LINES OF RESEARCH

PPGFis/UFPB is organized in a Concentration Area entitled EVALUATION AND INTERVENTION OPERATIONS IN PHYSIOTHERAPY, to cover prevention, promotion, and the rehabilitation in health from the physiotherapeutic valuation and intervention operations in individuals and in groups in all levels of healthcare.
It is divided in two lines of research:

1) Physiotherapeutic Evaluation and Intervention on Human Functionality:
It studies the physiotherapeutic evaluation and intervention on the human movement focusing on the functional performance and on the kinetic-functional rehabilitation.

2) Evaluation and Intervention of the Physiotherapy on the Community:

It studies physiotherapeutic evaluation and intervention operations on collective health, focusing on the epidemiological aspects of physiotherapy, social media, the public policies of health, and the health and work process.

 

EGRESSES’ PROFILE

The egresses from the PPGFi/UFPB will develop abilities and competencies that enable them to:
• Perform the new teaching and researching functions arising from scientific development;
• Promote the scientific progress and development and the generation of new technologies in the field of Physiotherapy;
• Carry out in a suitable, ethical, and coherent manner, the scientific investigations, with ethical, intellectual maturity, and with qualified scientific production;
• Develop projects in the research, teaching, and technological innovation fields;
• Render technical-scientific consultancy and assistance in their field of expertise, and direct and indirect management of their professional activities at bodies and institutions.

 

CURRICULAR STRUCTURE

     The academic master program in Physiotherapy of PPGFis/UFPB is organized in a concentration area and two lines of research. From the curricular perspective, the guidelines were monitored to provide the students with a solid didactical-pedagogical and scientific formation and to promote the suitable development of the lines and research projects.
      The necessary pay-up of studies for PPGFis/UFPB is expressed in a unity of credit, whereas each credit corresponds to 15 (fifteen) hours of programmed activities, which may cover classes, seminars, laboratory or field operations, and individual or oriented studies. For the conclusion of the Master program, it is needed the conclusion of a minimum amount of credits in courses (corresponding to 405 hours), approval of the pre-board and board of evaluation, and proficiency in English.
    The activities carried out throughout the master program in Physiotherapy will begin with the entrance of the candidate approved in the selective process (enrollment). The master students will begin, then, the compliance of credits in mandatory and optional courses necessary to the pay-up of the minimum required course load.
     The curricular matrix is composed of four mandatory courses and 15 optional courses. The master student must comply with, at least, 27 credits in courses, from which 12 will be completed in mandatory courses (Physiotherapy Epistemology; Methodology and Ethics in Scientific Research; Higher Education Methodology, and Biostatistics), and 15 in optional courses and/or teaching internship. The courses’ syllabus from the curricular matrix are up-to-date and aim to support the development and consolidation of the lines of research, relying on relevant bibliography that defines the theoretical benchmarks approached.
      The Internship in Teaching constitutes an academic activity registered in courses, for there is no specific tab on the platform for the completion of such an activity. Even though it is not named a course, its performance implies in optional credits. This academic activity is mandatory for the scholarship students and optional for the others. The scholarship student will develop these activities under the responsibility of a professor of an undergraduate course defined by the department responsible for the course and supervised by their advisor over the academic semester. If the PPGFis/UFPB’s student is a higher education professor, the declaration from the institution where he/she work can equal the internship in teaching, under the criteria of the program’s collegiate. At the end of this activity, the student will write a report on the activities carried out, which, after the appreciation of the course’s professor and his/her advisor, will be submitted to the program’s collegiate for approval. After that, two credits will be granted and summed to the course load of optional courses.

     At the end, before the 24 months subsequent to the enrollment, a pre-evaluation board must be defined, submitting the master dissertation exam to it, which will be public and will be presented before an Examiner Commission indicated by the advisor with the homologation of the Graduate Program in Physiotherapy’s Collegiate, in the level of academic master program of UFPB, composed of 3 (three) members holding the Doctor degree or similar, from which at least 1 (one) member does not belong to the Program’s teaching staff.
The program’s courses are:

Curricular Component Course load

 

 

Curricular Component	Course load
METHODS FOR THE ANALYSIS OF HUMAN FUNCTIONALITY   The biomechanical study of human movement. Study of the normal movements and its malfunctions in the various stages of life, through the kinetic, kinematic, electromyography, thermographic, and other necessary analyses to deepen the knowledge of the alterations that may compromise the human movement. Measurement scales and questionnaires on the measures of human functionality (direct and self-related observation).	60h
PHYSIOTHERAPEUTIC INTERVENTION ON HUMAN FUNCTIONALITY   It investigates the physiotherapeutic methods and techniques in the functional alterations of human movement, studying the usage of new therapeutic protocols and procedures, based on evidences of the individual physiotherapeutic approach.	45h
PHYSIOTHERAPEUTIC EVALUATION AND INTERVENTION ON THE COMMUNITY   It studies the physiotherapeutic evaluation and intervention methods and techniques on the community regarding the functional alterations of human movement coming from the affections prevailing the most in population groups and the main health indexes.	60h
ORGANIZATION AND EVALUATION OF PHYSIOTHERAPEUTIC SERVICES   It studies the organization of the National Health System and its implications to the physiotherapeutic services and practices, and the theoretical and methodological benchmarks of the health services evaluation, focusing on Rehabilitation.	45h
QUALITATIVE METHODOLOGY   It studies the grounds of qualitative research: concepts, assumptions, objective and subjective determinants, methodological goals and resources in qualitative research, and the importance of the qualitative research in the field of health, focusing on studies of the Physiotherapy field.	30h
PHYSIOTHERAPY WORK PROCESS   It studies the guiding theoretical benchmarks of the working processes in health and the team and inter-professional work. It discusses the work process and accesses the Physiotherapeutic services in three levels of health attention.	30h
PHYSIOTHERAPY, HEALTH, AND LABOR   A theoretical-conceptual and methodological study on the models of the current workers’ healthcare and their usage in the field of physiotherapy. It aims at comprehending the relations between health, labor, and labor disability and their outcome in the modern contemporary societies.	30h
PHYSIOTHERAPY, PHYSICAL ACTIVITY, AND HEALTH PROMOTION   It studies the concepts and strategies for health promotion with the valuation of physical activities aiming to the functional capacity and life quality and their applicability in various stages of life.	30h
PHYSIOTHERAPY AND NON-COMMUNICABLE CHRONICLE DISEASES   It studies the non-communicable chronicle diseases (NCD) as mortality factors of growing relevance in Brazil and the world and their determinants. It critically discusses the prevention and therapeutic strategies of such grievances  and their limitations, particularly in the Brazilian reality and in the Physiotherapeutic context.	30h
PHYSIOLOGY OF ACTIVITIES APPLIED TO DISEASES   The study of the application of physical activities to the hemodynamic, autonomic, and neuromuscular parameters of chronicle diseases based on scientific evidence for the clinical investigation.	30h
HUMAN PERFORMANCE IN SPORTS PRACTICE   Conceptual and procedural justification of human performance in sports modalities. Deepening of the motor and technical capacities in the sports environment.	30h
ADVANCED TOPICS ON TRAUMATIC-ORTHOPEDIC PHYSIOTHERAPY Study of the adaptations of the muscular-skeletal in the presence or absence of external and internal stimulus as well as those related to diseases that result in functional losses.	30h
ADVANCED TOPICS IN CARDIO-RESPIRATORY PHYSIOTHERAPY   Study of the knowledge and practices of the cardiovascular conditioning programs, and the predisposing risk factors for the cardiovascular and respiratory diseases; it also discusses the intervention and rehabilitation methods for health promotion.	30h
ADVANCED TOPICS IN NEUROLOGICAL PHYSIOTHERAPY   It studies the techniques and protocols for physiotherapeutic intervention based on guidelines oriented to the neurofunctional physiotherapy, correlating the kinetic-functional diagnosis of pathologies of the nervous system in the choice of a neurofunctional treatment based on evidence: Constraint-induced therapy; External clues in the walking re-education, double-tasking, nervous system’s neurodynamics, robotics in rehabilitation, training of walk on a conveyor belt; it also tackles physiotherapeutic evaluation instruments developed from the knowledge based on evidence.	30h
ADVANCED TOPICS IN DERMATO-FUNCTIONAL PHYSIOTHERAPY   It studies the scientific evidence of the evaluation and treatment of malfunctions in the tegumental system. New technologies applied to the alternations of the body share and tissue wound healing. Advanced topics in dermato-functional.	30h
PHYSIOTHERAPY EPISTEMOLOGY   Evolution of the scientific reasoning and the contemporary science. Science Epistemology. Historical-epistemological, sociopolitical, and ethical study of Physiotherapy. Implications of the evolution of scientific thinking for Physiotherapy.	45h
SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND ETHICS   Grounds of the scientific knowledge, philosophical and methodological foundations. Qualitative and quantitative methods. Types of designs in field studies on Physiotherapy and health. Stages of the research process (planning, experimenting, analysis, and promotion). Ethical aspects in carrying out research involving human beings. Normalization of academic papers. Modalities of scientific papers. Elaboration and release of scientific works in the field of Physiotherapy. Critical analysis of scientific papers in the field of interest if Physiotherapy.	45h
HIGHER EDUCATION METHODOLOGY   It studies the meaning of Education, knowledge, identity, and teaching praxis within the university context. The operationalization of different technical procedures of the teaching organization, seeking critical pedagogical practices, focusing on the higher education formation of the Physiotherapist.	45h
BIOSTATISTICS   It studies statistics focusing on planning, evaluation, and interpretation of the data coming from research in the field of Physiotherapy, through theoretical justification regarding the descriptive analysis, utilization of computational tools applied to statistics, data presentation (tables, graphics), evaluation of clinical and epidemiological studies, and the application of statistical tests.	45h

 

 

ENTRANCE IN THE PROGRAM

      PPGFis/UFPB annually opens its entrance vacancies, through the opening of a public notice for the unified selection process, following the criteria established in the internal statute of the program and the current legislation at UFPB. The candidate interested in the vacancy must follow the public notice’s rules, sending the necessary documents jointly with the proving documents of their intermediate level in the English language and their curriculum lattes. The selection involves the performance of a written test, defense and submission of the research project, and analysis of resumé.