I think the value of physiotherapy depends on context and medical history. Some people enjoy a placebo effect, some need and benefit from it. I have another huge concern. Low barriers to entry. Too many para-medical, physiotherapists, psychs, etc. are of a very poor standard, IMHO. Secondary care gets replaced by low qualification care, low effort care, all to often.
If you compare these professions to nurses, you can see the difference. Nurses have a very high bar to entry, are almost doctors in many cases and have extremely high standards to uphold. They can become almost professionally on par with medics in some situations, such as GPs and Nurse Practitioners in the UK. It will vary by country and decade, I'm sure. But it's much easier to become and remain a half-baked therapist of some sort.
My spouse and child have all needed physios on different occasions, ranging from after accidents, for back weakness issues to dealing with muscle strengthening for hypermobility. And the majority of them were clearly in the wrong profession. I believe that many viewed it as a low qualification, but qualifiable, respectable profession to enter, with useful barriers to entry. Private physios in particular treat their profession as easy money. They know there is very little damage they can do when not caring, usually (I know of ignorant physios putting people in hospital, within a session, who arrived with minor complaints). Many private physios have a culture of doing almost nothing for their patients, because they spend most of their time as administrators of insurance evidentiary trails. And rousing themselves to be proactive in other contexts sounds like too much work.
There were only two physios my family have encountered that inspired any confidence. And neither of them detained themselves at the lowest common denominator. One was a PhD in their field and the other clearly medically inclined.
