All posts by Dave Nicholls

Dave Nicholls is a Professor of Critical Physiotherapy in the School of Clinical Sciences at AUT University in Auckland, New Zealand. He is a physiotherapist, lecturer, researcher and writer, with a passion for critical thinking in and around the physical therapies. David is the founder of the Critical Physiotherapy Network, an organisation that promotes the use of cultural studies, education, history, philosophy, sociology, and a range of other disciplines in the study of the profession’s past, present and future. He is also co-founder and chair of the International Physiotherapy History Association Executive, and founding Executive member of the Environmental Physiotherapy Association. David’s own research work focuses on the philosophy, sociology, and critical history of physiotherapy, and considers how physiotherapy might need to adapt to the changing economy of health care in the 21st century. He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, many as first author. His first book – The End of Physiotherapy (Routledge, 2017) – was the first book-length critical history of the profession. A second sole-authored book – Physiotherapy Otherwise – was published in early 2022 as a free pdf/eBook (available from https://ojs.aut.ac.nz/tuwhera-open-monographs/catalog/book/8). He was co-editor on the first collection of critical physiotherapy writings – Manipulating Practices (Cappelen Damm, 2018) – and was the lead editor for the follow-up – Mobilising Knowledge (Routledge, 2020). He is also very active on social media, writing weekly on contemporary critical physiotherapy issues (criticalphysio.substack.com). He has taught in physiotherapy programmes in the UK and New Zealand for over 30 years and has presented his work around the world.

Hospital care 100 years ago

A recent piece of photojournalism by Gabriel H. Sanchez in Buzzfeed (link) shows what hospital care was like in New York 100 years ago. The images are timely because they remind us about the things that have changed (nurses in pillbox hats, horse-drawn carriages, tennis courts for the staff), and

Zoom recording of yesterday’s IPHA Whole Group meeting

Although it’s less than ideal, video meetings do, at least, allow us to record and disseminate get-togethers. Here’s a link (Password: 6E$+34Y0) to yesterday’s biannual IPHA whole group meeting. The 2nd half of the meeting is devoted to a plan to develop a new History101 course, and we’re looking for ideas

Resources on the history of physiotherapy in France

Last week we received an email from Professor Cecil Larochelle who sent us some fantastic writings on the history of French physiotherapy. See the list of references below. R. Remondière, Réhabiliter Deménÿ, Annales de Kinésithérapie, 1992, 19 : 387-90. R. Remondière, L’institution de la kinésithérapie en France (1840-1986), Polysémies de

Physiotherapy in a time of pandemic

Landry et al make a good point in their recent editorial connecting the outbreak of infectious diseases with the need for rehabilitation (Landry et al., 2020). They suggest that ‘physiotherapy can mediate the deleterious pulmonary, respiratory, and immobility complications that are commonplace’ after the kinds of widespread infections we are

APTA Centenary

Cameron MacDonald – USA representative for IPHA, though with an accent that is very southern… The countdown to the 100 year anniversary of the professional association for physical therapist practice in the United Sites commenced at the Combined Sections Meeting (CSM) in Denver CO on February 12th. The official launch

The Stoke Mandeville bed cycle

This post was written by Selina Hurley, Curator of Medicine, at the Science Museum in London Now on display in Medicine: The Wellcome Galleries, this bed cycle helps tell the story of Ludwig Guttmann (1899-1980), German neurologist, who was part of a movement to change the treatment of people with

The IPHA in 2020

Last week we had the first meeting of the IPHA Executive for 2020. Over the course of the next few weeks you’re going to be able to read about some of the work we’re doing, as each of the Exec members post about work they’re involved in. Perhaps the most

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A short history of scope of practice changes in British Columbia, Canada

The Physiotherapy History of British Columbia Project group in Canada recently had a discussion about the changing scope of physiotherapy practice in BC. These notes were prepared by Nancy Cho and Patricia Grohne. It would be interesting to see how these changes compare with what you have seen in your

A history of Spanish physiotherapy

In 2011the Spanish physiotherapy journal Cuestiones de Fisioterapia ran a special issue on the history of physiotherapy in Spain (link to full pdf of the journal). Very generously, the authors included English translations of many of the abstracts. Thanks to Glenn also for translating a version of the editorial through Google

Recognising 200 years of international orthopaedic manipulative physical therapy

Following on from last week’s post on Kay Nias’s presentation on the history of massage, this week we have a pdf of some of Cameron MacDonald’s work on the history of orthopaedic manipulative physical therapy. For more information, contact Cameron here. Recognizing 200 years of International OMPT Practice pdf

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