The First Turkish Physical Therapist in Dortmund

Ayşe Özdemir, who three years ago put in commission the first Turkish physical therapy center in Dortmund, addresses a wide group of people. She has the advantage of offering multilingual services through her staff composed of Palestinians, Bosnians and Poles.

The young entrepreneur emphasizes that 90% of her customers are immigrants. Following the opening of Balancee Physiotherapie, two other Turkish physical therapists followed Özdemir’s lead in Dortmund in the following years. Özdemir, who provides physical therapy for nearly 40 patients per day, states that they have provided services to over 2000  patients in three years. The fee per session for private patients is 45 Euro and for those with insurance it is 35 Euro.

Özdemir’s great dream is to expand what she started as a small business by collaborating with other physical therapists. Actually, the Balancee Physiotherapie did start to work in cooperation with one of the large polyclinics in Dortmund last July. The physical therapy centers in Germany, supervised by the German Ministry of Health, are widely distributed and furnish services to many patients. Özdemir states that Turkish patients particularly prefer a therapist who speaks their native tongue because they feel more relaxed.

People who visit the therapist’s office are mostly those who suffer from back or knee pain. The average duration of therapy is 45 minutes. Özdemir tells us that after opening the center she continuously attended courses to update her knowledge and skills. One needs to get a three-year professional training in order to become a physical therapist in Germany. Such an education has to be financed. One becomes a physical therapist at the expense of 18 thousand Euro.  

Özdemir tells us that one of the most important reasons for her becoming a physical therapist was her love of sports. Ayşe Özdemir was born in 1975 as the fourth daughter of a family with seven children and her father came to Germany as a worker in 1969. Özdemir’s family are originally from Ankara and apparently none of the other family members is interested in this profession. Nevertheless, Özdemir tells us that she wanted to set a good example not merely for the members of her family, but for all young Turkish female entrepreneurs.