Kinesiology
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Kinesiology is the study of human movement.
The theory of kinesiology encompasses the study of the biological components of human movement including the anatomical, physiological, neurological, biochemical, and biomechanical. Also studied is the relationship between the quality of human movement and the overall health of the human organism.
Theoretical knowledge of kinesiology is applied in many areas including physical therapy, occupational therapy, chiropractic, osteopathy, exercise physiology, and ergonomics. The approach of these applications can be therapeutic, preventive, or high-performance. The applications of kinesiology can also incorporate knowledge from other disciplines such as psychology, sociology, cultural studies, ecology, evolutionary biology, and anthropology. Related interdisciplinary fields in motor skills,skills research are graphonomics, i.e., the study of handwriting movement control and the study of motor control in speech.
Kinesiology can also include the study of the areas of application (akin to a medical study – see sports medicine). For example, chiropractic could be studied in this way by conducting an experiment to measure its efficacy of at relieving chronic pain. Other experiments could measure less subjective qualities, like a specific physiological effect (such as blood pressure).
Kinesiology is distinct from applied kinesiology, which is a form of diagnostic kinesiology and is considered to be a particularly therapeutic approach to improving human health and function which incorporates theoretical knowledge from kinesiology. (Some consider applied kinesiology to be pseudoscientific, which does not necessarily invalidate its therapeutic value.) The relationship of applied kinesiology to kinesiology is analogous to the relationship between osteopathy (or any other "applied" form) and kinesiology.