Tag: America
America’s first Physical Therapist
Whilst Mary McMillan is lauded as the mother of the American Physical Therapy Association, the nation’s first ‘practitioner’ was more likely Charles Fayette Taylor, who brought the therapeutic exercises and massage of the Swedish Movement …
Physical Therapy’s Oscar Winning Film
On the 75th anniversary of its production we look back at the profession’s 1949 Oscar winning film. ‘Toward Independence’ is a 1948 American short documentary film about the rehabilitation of military veterans with spinal cord …
The Mother of #GlobalPT
The hashtag #GlobalPT emerged on the social media network Twitter at the World Confederation of Physical Therapy (now World Physiotherapy) Congress in Capetown, South Africa in 2017. It worked to connect digital commentary and build …
From Aide to Diagnostician: An American Physical Therapy Transformation
How current physical therapists became diagnosticians illuminates the trajectory of the profession and the value we offer. My recent exploration into this American story was recently published as an historical essay in Physical Therapy & …
Member Malaise in 1921
It is 102 years since the first editions of The P.T. Review were published. A periodical which would become the Journal of Physical Therapy, now PTJ. Taking the time to step back and immerse ourselves …
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 …
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. …
PNF in Short
Initially termed ‘proprioceptive facilitation’ by Dr Herman Kabat in the early 1940’s, physical therapist Dorothy Voss added the word ‘neuromuscular’ to give us the now familiar Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF). Kabat’s conceptual framework for PNF …
Never the “Twain: shall met, or shall they?
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 …
Hospital care 100 years ago
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 …