Studying Physiotherapy Behind the Iron Curtain
My vocational training as a physiotherapist in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) offered me my first internship in 1968 at a Saxon Thermal Bath, a leading spa facility in the GDR for rheumatic diseases, specialising in ankylosing spondylitis, but also in the late effects of polio. In the physiotherapy department, …
The State Institute for Physiotherapy and Massage in Dresden, Germany
(Translated by Sandra Schiller) Physiotherapy as a profession has different roots throughout Europe. Sweden pioneered medical gymnastics at the beginning of the 19th century. The initiator was Pehr Henrik Ling, a Swedish poet with a great love for nature and his country. The Royal Central Institute of Swedish Gymnastics was …
Researching the History of Physiotherapy in Saxony (Germany).
(Translated by Sandra Schiller) When I started research on the history of physiotherapy in Saxony for a talk I had been invited to give following German Reunification in 1990, I asked the state schools for physiotherapy in Leipzig, Zwickau and Dresden for any memorabilia they might have. One of the …