This article is intended to contribute for the debate instituted about the composition of "Family Health" teams. It must be understood as a reflection about the possibility of integrating the physiotherapist to those teams, aiming to present some aspects of the profession that might potentially improve the outcomes of primary health care. On this study, we analyze the legal documents that approve the rules for qualifying professional physiotherapists. In the 1970s and 1980s, following Brazilian sanitary reform, those documents made official the process that led physiotherapy, which was historically recognized for its clinic acting, into a shift on its work object. This change approximated physiotherapists to preventive and health promotion practices, typical of the first level of care. We conclude that such changes opened an important space for integration still little explored. We propose to strengthen these new fields, by focusing the reflection on integration forms and on the necessity to impose to managers to plan their actions in association with the community, taking into account the local health situation and assuring intervention on problems according to priority population groups.
Family Health; Physiotherapy; Multiprofessional teams
