And in a witty and wide-ranging keynote address at the University of Otago, she also highlighted the benefits of working more closely with other health professionals through a highly collaborative approach she termed ''interprofessional health care''.
This offered closer and more integrated links with doctors and other health professionals than the traditional ''multiprofessional'' model.
She was commenting during a two-day physiotherapy science conference held late last week to celebrate the founding of the Otago University School of Physiotherapy in 1913, 100 years ago.
She also told more than 150 people at the university's St David lecture theatre that physiotherapists, also known as physical therapists, needed to address not just the immediate health concern of any patient but also wider lifestyle-related issues, including obesity.
She gave the example of a physiotherapist being approached by a patient who had persistent back pain, but was also overweight.
An ability to encourage patients to consider positive changes in their lifestyle in order to improve their health should be regarded as a core competency, given the large health challenges now being faced, she said.
She joked that much of the food eaten by humans could not be recommended as being safe for animals, and said the benefits of regular physical exercise and good diet had long been established.
