Few objects have experienced name changes quite like the Physio Ball. In the early 1960s, Aquilino Cosani, an Italian plastics manufacturer created what he termed the ‘Pezzi Ball’, a large inflatable ball whose sole purpose was to aid in gymnastic exercise.
Cosani’s ‘Pezzi Ball’ would have much wider applications than gymnastics. Within a decade of his creation, the Pezzi ball was being used by physiotherapists across Europe for a range of different applications from cerebral palsy to spinal injuries. Particularly influential in the growth of the Swiss Ball during this period were English physiotherapists Dr Elseth Kong and Mary Quentin who, inspired by the Bobath method of stroke/neuro-developmental rehabilitation, developed paediatric neurological rehabilitation programs using ‘Pezzi’ Balls.
Kong and Quentin’s popularisation inspired others to use the ‘Pezzi Ball’, including Dr Susan Klein-Vogelbach, a Swiss physiotherapist concerned primarily with postural re-education and back rehabilitation. It is most likely Dr Klein-Vogelbach to whom we owe the modern practice of using Swiss Balls for a variety of rehabilitation techniques.
In the 1980’s, the ‘Pezzi’ Ball made its way to the USA. A number of American physical therapists had visited Europe, specifically Switzerland, to learn European methods of rehabilitation. The ‘Pezzi Ball’ interested the travelling physical therapists and they brought it back to their practices, and in honour of their journey, renamed the ‘Pezzi’ Ball the Swiss Ball.
The exercise options provided by the inherent instability of the ball made it highly popular with physiotherapists around the world and it has almost become almost synonomous with the profession, hence now being known as the Physio Ball.
Description provided by Susan Waller of United Arab Emirates
