On the 8th September 1951, delegates representing seventeen national physiotherapy associations met in Copenhagen, Denmark to establish the World Confederation for Physical Therapy (WCPT); now World Physiotherapy. Seventy-five years later it represents more than 600,000 physiotherapists through 129 member organisations, …
To celebrate the 75th anniversary of World Physiotherapy (formerly the World Confederation for Physical Therapy – WCPT) on 8 September 2026, we’ve created a special 75-question challenge to put your knowledge of the profession to the test. Their are 5 …
On the 1st of January 1973, Jean Blair was appointed Associate Professor by the Council of the University of the Witwatersrand. She was awarded the honour, in the words of the Vice-Chancellor, “..on the grounds of her long and meritorious …
Vibration has been, and is still, used widely across physiotherapy. The speed of the vibration offers differing therapeutic benefits that can be targeted toward specific health conditions. Slow rhythmical rocking, via horseback (hippotherapy) or being sat upon a top loading …
Samuel Longhorne Clemens, or more famously known as Mark Twain, has a very interesting contribution to the historical development of manual therapy in the United States. A delicious irony exists in that his pen name …
Nearly 70 years after its inauguration, the World Confederation for Physical Therapists (WCPT) transformed into World Physiotherapy on 30 June 2020 with the launch of their new website at www.world.physio. The idea of creating an international …
COVID 19 is here with us now, but today’s news will hopefully become a historical narrative as we move forward and look back on this unprecedented global health and economic crisis. The historical context is …
“O que existiu primeiro foi o CAOS e depois GAIA (Terra)” – Hesíodo: Teogonia – Origem A palavra grega CAOS é a mais aproximada da palavra “Vácuo”, um vazio ou nada no início de tudo. Assim …
As the Canadian Physiotherapy Association celebrates its centenary year, 2020 also marks an important historical milestone for the Charted Society of Physiotherapy in the UK – 100 years since it received a Royal Charter. On …
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 …
Introduction¹ My previous contribution to IPHA articles (March 2020) presented an overview of the relationship between the medical profession and physiotherapy following the introduction of the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK exemplified through …
Worldwide, due in part to the current situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, the history of our profession is becoming a hot topic. We can draw inspiration from the beginnings of our profession, and model after …
Australia was the first country in the world to teach and examine all aspects of physiotherapy: exercise, massage and manipulation, and electrotherapy, in programmes aligned with universities. Early physiotherapists were not nurses, and men were …
University of the Witwatersrand In 1924 the department of physiotherapy had been established in the Johannesburg Hospital and had been opened to patients in September 1925. Dr EB Woolf had been appointed as head of …
