This is a collection of our latest and greatest content from our talented writers.
Tag: Featured
The Bonesetters of Brittany
In the Brittany (Western France) of yesteryear, there was a dearth of medical doctors practicing in the rural areas and when one could be found, his professional services were rarely affordable. Traditional healing treatments and remedies were therefore widely used; one of the local healers most commonly consulted was the …
Forty Years of Dutch Manual Therapy
Introduction The 40th anniversary of the Nederlandse Vereniging voor Manuele Therapie (NVMT) in 2021 was a trigger for this historical review by Huub Vossen and Anton de Wijer. Their writings were translated to English via an online translation application and edited by Glenn Ruscoe. The genesis of manual therapy As …
A Brief History of Physiotherapy in The Netherlands
Rise of Remedial Gymnastics and Massage in the 19th Century Physiotherapy, as it is now known, in the Netherlands has its origins in the first half of the 19th century. The forerunners were healing gymnasts and masseurs who came from Sweden and Germany. Initially separate professions with separate training, they …
Mental Health in Wales in the Early 20th Century
OT History Matters is seeking interest from Physiotherapy colleagues on a project about the history of mental health in Wales. They have made contact with the IPHA and provided the information below: This note introduces a new project in Wales. If any physiotherapy colleagues are interested in this era (circa …
World Cup Physio Goes Down
The football World Cup is the most celebrated sporting event on the planet, with the 2018 iteration totaling 3.57 billion combined spectators. In its 92-year history there have been many terrific stories, but for one of the more unusual and involving a team physiotherapist we go back to the very …
Sister Kenny
On the eve of the 70th anniversary of her passing we will explore the life of this Australian ‘nurse’ whose work with polio victims opened the modern-day era of rehabilitation and physiotherapy. Whilst working in outback Queensland in 1909, Kenny found that several children suffered from a disease that she …
Guidelines for Computerised Information Systems in the UK NHS Physiotherapy Services: An Historical Perspective
Background This paper (below) was published in the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy Journal “Physiotherapy” in April 1994. At that time, there were very few computerised information systems specifically designed for physiotherapy services and Allied Health in the UK but computerised information systems were gradually becoming more widely used in the …
Why Information Systems for Physiotherapy? – An Historical Perspective
I think the service I led and managed was the first in the United Kingdom to make Personal Computer (PC) access fully available to all physiotherapy staff and by the time I retired from that role all of my out-patient staff had their own work stations complete with PC. I …
The ways we lose our culture
A few years ago, I was going through some old papers and came across a fragile yellowed newspaper cutting celebrating the refurbished physiotherapy school in Dunedin, New Zealand. The broadsheet report had some lovely pictures of the wooden lecture theatre and a handful of women students in uniform studiously taking …
Marathon Man
The grandson of enslaved parents, Ted Corbitt (1919-2007) was born on a cotton farm near Dunbarton, South Carolina, USA. He recalls a childhood of running for pleasure and for the sheer necessity of getting around. Corbitt ran track events in high school and later at the University of Cincinnati. Surrounded …