World Physiotherapy Day 2018 was the second year that the Singapore Physiotherapy Association (SPA) student council and Physiotherapy Student Management Committee from the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) helped to plan a campus wide event to celebrate the occasion. For 2018 a carnival style event was held promoting exercise to staff and fellow students, with the theme “Keep body and mind fit with exercise”.
The Opening Ceremony included a speech from Professor Alan Wong, Cluster Director, Health and Social Sciences. During his speech, Professor Alan described the history of physiotherapy in Singapore and the evolving roles of the profession in the country.
There were four game booths where participants could try out familiar carnival games, as well as learn something about exercise and the physiotherapy profession. Six exercise booths were also available where participants could try out exercises planned by the physiotherapy students. The participants had great fun trying out a two minute TABATA workout which served as a cardio workout. They also learned how to perform a talk test to find out how hard they were working out. There were also a variety of activities that people could try out such as Wii balance, or find out their reaction time using a FITLIGHT machine. Besides cardio, our booths also focused on flexibility, strength, and balance.
To tie in with this year’s campaign message of “Physiotherapy and mental health,” we had a game booth where we highlighted the prevalence of mental health, and how physical activity and mental health are closely related. We hope that participants of our event left knowing that exercise can help prevent the development of mental health issues. And at the end of all that fun, our participants walked away with their very own goodie bags filled with items such as a jump rope, water bottle, towel, shoe bag, as well as an SPA mug and magnet.
World Physiotherapy Day is an event that will be held every year at SIT jointly organised by the SPA student council and the Physiotherapy Student Management Committee. The organising committee of this year’s event hopes that more and more SPA members as well as physiotherapists in the community will be interested in attending future events. We hope that all those who participated in this year's event remember to “keep body and mind fit with exercise.”
