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 …
The following edited excerpts are from the article titled “Preserving our Past: Why physio history matters”. It was published in the Australian Physiotherapy Association’s (APA) InMotion Magazine on 3 February 2020 and describes the current …
Last week we had the first meeting of the IPHA Executive for 2020. Over the course of the next few weeks you’re going to be able to read about some of the work we’re doing, …
The Physiotherapy History of British Columbia Project group in Canada recently had a discussion about the changing scope of physiotherapy practice in BC. These notes were prepared by Nancy Cho and Patricia Grohne. It would …
In 2011the Spanish physiotherapy journal Cuestiones de Fisioterapia ran a special issue on the history of physiotherapy in Spain (link to full pdf of the journal). Very generously, the authors included English translations of many of …
On the 125th anniversary year of the commencement of the Society of Trained Masseuses in the United Kingdom, one of the seminal moments in the history of the profession, the International Physiotherapy History Association (IPHA) …
UPDATE: The Winners will be announced early, on 14 November 2019. In this 125th anniversary year of the commencement of the Society of Trained Masseuses in the United Kingdom, arguably the beginning of the profession, …
Following on from last week’s post on Kay Nias’s presentation on the history of massage, this week we have a pdf of some of Cameron MacDonald’s work on the history of orthopaedic manipulative physical therapy. …
Robin McKenzie has received many awards, honours and titles during his career, and added to them is the International Physiotherapy History Association’s History’s Greatest Physios – People’s Choice Award. The Award is based on the …
A few days ago, Kay Nias, Medicine Galleries Research Fellow at the Science Museum in London, gave a talk on massage and the history of physiotherapy (link). Kay was kind enough to share her slides …
With some intrepid searching and a lot of time, members of the IPHA Exec have brought together some interesting links to the history of physiotherapy around the globe. The links are listed alphabetically by their …
