Tag: Featured

This is a collection of our latest and greatest content from our talented writers.

Agnes Wenham

Agnes Wenham – Paediatric Pioneer

Agnes Wenham, a physiotherapist who trained in Sweden and England, was a well-known character in the profession, especially in Johannesburg, where she practised for many years.  She moved to South Africa from the United Kingdom as …

Book Cover, Under My Thumb by Olive Millard.

Olive Millard – An Extraordinary Life

It is rare to find physiotherapists writing about their experiences (Nicholls, 2021), which makes Olive Millard’s (1952) autobiography Under My Thumb so important. A summary of Millard’s professional career is written by Goldstone (2024) and …

Founding meeting of the Ukrainian Association of Physical Rehabilitation Specialists, 2007

Ukraine’s Short History of Physical Therapy

Before the restoration of Ukraine’s Independence in 1991, rehabilitation occurred within the Soviet paradigm, which set itself in opposition to Western ideology – not out of rational consideration, but out of the need to be …

Observers attending the foundation of the World Confederation of Physical Therapy on 8 September 1951, Copenhagen.

The Making of World Physiotherapy

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 …

History Quiz

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 …

Professor Jean Blair. Image from the Journal of the South African Society of Physiotherapists.

South Africa’s First Professor of Physiotherapy

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 …

Zander Apparatus F1

Vibration Therapy

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 …

Johann Mezger

Launch of the Biography of Dr Johan Mezger by Prof Dr Peter Jan Margry

Today, the biography of Dr Johan Mezger was presented at the Amstel Hotel, Amsterdam, by author Prof Dr Peter Jan Margry. The therapeutic gymnast and physician Mezger not only made a significant contribution to therapeutic …

Eliza McAuley

Eliza McAuley – Pioneering Educator

Eliza McAuley was born on 1866 in Upper Plenty, Australia – a rural area just north of Melbourne, Victoria. Her background is unclear, with her father identified both as a farmer (McMeeken, 2016a) and a …

Some of the women participants in the Lingiad 1949.

The Lingiad

An international gymnastics display, with 7,399 participants from twelve countries, was held in Stockholm in 1939 to commemorate the centenary of the death of Per Henrik Ling (1776–1839), the founder of Ling gymnastics (Meckbach & …

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