Following consultation with member organisations, for the next four years World PT Day will focus on noncommunicable diseases.
The theme for this year’s World PT Day on 8 September is the role of physiotherapy and physical activity in the prevention, management, and rehabilitation of cardiovascular disease and stroke.
The campaign is focused around the following key messages:
Cardiovascular disease
- Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading cause of death globally.
- Each year, cardiovascular disease (CVD) claims over 20.5 million lives - representing over 30% of all global deaths. 85% of these are due to heart attack and stroke. Over three quarters of CVD deaths occur in LMICs.
- Physiotherapists can help to prevent CVD. They:
- can help identify people at higher risk of heart disease
- design safe, personalised exercise programmes
- encourage regular physical activity
- promote early detection and early action
- spot warning signs
- Physiotherapists can help people manage their CVD, become more active, and reduce the chance of further cardiac events, such as a heart attack.
Stroke
- 1 in 4 of us will have a stroke in our lifetime, but almost all strokes can be prevented.
- Just 30 minutes of exercise five times a week can reduce your risk of stroke by 25%.
- Physiotherapists play an important role in reducing stroke risk, especially by supporting people to be more physically active and manage long term health conditions.
- Rehabilitation is an important part of recovery after a stroke - it helps people get back to doing everyday activities, improves quality of life, and supports independence.
- Exercise-based physiotherapy has been shown to improve physical function, mobility, balance, and quality of life at all stages of stroke recovery — from hospital care to long term community rehabilitation.
World PT Day toolkit
The World PT Day toolkit has a range of materials to share the campaign in your country/territory, these include:
- information sheets
- posters
- pop-up roller banners
- social media graphics
- an activities guide
- advocacy toolkit
- t-shirt design
The information sheets, posters, and banners are currently available in English and will shortly also be available in French and Spanish. Volunteer translators are working on versions of the materials in other languages, which will be uploaded to our website as they become available.
World Physiotherapy would like to express its sincere thanks to the following for their input and assistance in the production of the materials for World PT Day 2026: International Confederation of Cardiorespiratory Physiotherapists (ICCrPT); International Neurological Physiotherapy Association (INPA); Natalie Fini; Shirley Ngai; Marco Pang.
