The following is from an article titled, The History of Physiotherapy in Bosnia and Herzegovina by Mirjana Dujmović and Jasmin Avdovićwritten; published in Fizioterapija Macedonica Journal. It was translated into English by Google Translate and then summarized.
Pre-History
Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) located on the European Balkan Penisula is geologically in the central part of the Dinaric massif, which was created by the collision of the African and European continental plates. It is a significant seismic area that abounds in geothermal activity with many sulphureous springs, and springs rich in radon and other elements. Since the Neolithic time these springs have been places of worship and gathering.
Romans
The first evidence of the planned exploitation of the springs is from the Roman era. As their cultural heritage and identity lie at the core of bathing, they built public baths and spas in such places where the water did not have to be heated. In addition to the already existing thermal spas in northern Italy, the spas of BiH quickly became recognized as places of relaxation and treatment for the Roman aristocracy.
Many Roman baths still exist today as places where, continuously for over 3000 years, people have gathered to cure various diseases and conditions.
Middle Ages
With the collapse of the Western Roman Empire a long period of turbulence and war began in Europe. The public baths in the region decline and disappear.
Ottomans
The medieval kingdom of Bosnia was officially founded in 1464 and fell under the rule of the Ottoman Sultanate. The Ottomans began to build hammams (Islamic baths) and ordinary public baths, around which permanent settlements often appeared. The first traces of activities that would resemble the forerunners of today’s physiotherapy in BiH come from this period, as because the Ottomans in the hammams practiced various forms of body peeling and massage.
Hapsburgs
At the Berlin Congress of 1878, Austria-Hungary was given a mandate to occupy BiH. The Hapsburg monarchy built many health resorts on the foundations of Roman public baths or built new ones on the sites of the Ottoman hammams. The monarchy also built new health resorts in places where they had not previously existed.
Permanently employed, health-educated, workers appeared in the field of physiotherapy, which at the time experienced a boom. Many members of the Habsburg family, but also other members of the aristocracy came to Austro-Hungarian spas in BiH as guests of the monarchy for rest or treatment for their rheumatism, sterility and other ailments. These spas were used by everyone who had the means to pay for their services, whether it was the local population or those coming from other parts of the monarchy or Europe; which accelerated the development of awareness of the need for such treatment and the very understanding of the importance of physiotherapy.
World Wars
At the beginning of the First World War, there was a significant stagnation in the development of physiotherapy in BiH, and it became even worse in the period between the two world wars. The spas and sanatoriums that existed at that time in Bosnia and Herzegovina continued with their activities, but without investment, their processes did not change in terms of the scope and quality since their opening during the Austro-Hungarian rule.
Yugoslavia
At the end of World War II, BiH became a part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, with all the accompanying institutions that now again turned their interest to the development and progress of the community at the local level. Spas were being renovated and new ones opened.
BiH becomes the richest in Europe in terms of the number of spa resorts per total area. Trained health professionals worked in these sanatoriums, providing increasingly high-quality physiotherapy services. Investment in systematic training and professional development increased, and the newly opened Institute for Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation in Sarajevo nurtured and improved the profession.
In 1946, a medical school opened in Sarajevo, but before 1986 it did not produce locally trained physiotherapists. Physiotherapists had come from what was then Czechoslovakia and other Eastern European countries that had an already established course in physiotherapy, as well as by locals who had completed their education in Zagreb (Croatia) or Belgrade (Serbia).
By the decision of the Council of the Faculty of Medicine in Sarajevo, the Higher Medical School in Sarajevo was founded, and in 1982, a course for local training of physiotherapists was introduced.
The association of physiotherapists of the SR BiH was founded and existed until 1991.
War of Independence
BiH declared its independence in October 1991, and in February 1992, after a referendum, it officially separated from Yugoslavia. What followed was almost four years of unspeakably brutal war in which almost the entire infrastructure, including the spas and sanatoriums, of Bosnia and Herzegovina was destroyed.
During the war over 200,000 people died and the number of wounded exceeded half a million. The huge number of people with a permanent form of disability required a major change in the organization of physiotherapy, because the clinical centres, hospitals and spas that had survived the war, were not able to respond to the enormous need.
At the beginning of 1997, in cooperation with Queen’s University in Canada and their department for the development of community rehabilitation in the territory of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 38 community rehabilitation centres were opened, most of which operate within local health centres. With this move, physiotherapy was included in primary health care. A large number of physiotherapists were employed, and new schools were opened to train staff.
Post War
With the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement in 1995, Bosnia and Herzegovina became a state divided into two entities, each of which has all the powers of the state except for the ministries of foreign affairs and the army. In such an environment of mistrust and constitutional obstacles for the unity of physiotherapists, it was difficult to emphasize the interests of the profession before the interests of the new geopolitical framework. BiH had a unique association of physiotherapists before the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, which, less than a year before the conflict was moved from Mostar to Banja Luka. Banja Luka became the capital of the Republic of Srpska, and the association was renamed the Association of Physio and Occupational Therapists of the Republic of Srpska.
The Federation of BiH, as the second entity divided into ten cantons, and was without any professional organization from 1995, when the war ended, until February 2009.
After five failed attempts to establish a professional organization for physiotherapy on the territory of the Federation of BiH, in 2009 the Physiotherapy Association of the Federation of BiH (UFFBiH) was formed.
UFFBiH participated in negotiations on the creation of a unique association for physiotherapy at the level of the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but the current political situation in the country does not yet allow professional interests to be represented without political issues at the state level of BiH. Nevertheless, the UFFBiH has good professional cooperation with the Association of Physio and Occupational Therapists of the Republic of Srpska, as well as with the Association of Professional Therapists of the Republic of Macedonia, the Association of Physiotherapists of the Republic of Serbia and the Croatian Chamber of Physiotherapists.
In 2008, the Higher School of Health in Sarajevo was renamed to the “Faculty of Health Studies”, which put physiotherapy at the university level of education, and graduating students received the title of graduate physiotherapist.
