The Greenlane Rocker Bed

The image of the Greenlane ‘rocker’ bed will be familiar to generations of physiotherapists who worked at Greenlane Hospital, in Auckland, New Zealand during the 1950s, 60s and 70s.

Originally much smaller, the rocker, or tipping bed, was designed by the parents of a girl with bronchiectasis who was being treated at Greenlane Hospital in the early 1950s.  The bed design was later adapted by Sheila Glendining for larger sputum producers.  Two rockers were designed and built – one for the physiotherapy department and one for the Tuberculosis ward.

Patients lay on the bed with their head through a restraining holster that stopped them from sliding off the bed when their feet were elevated.  One person sat at the head of the bed and rocked the bed up and down in time with the patient’s breathing.  Their head was raised up as they breathed in, and they were plunged down as they exhaled.  On the way down a second physiotherapist vibrated and clapped the patient’s chest to help them expectorate.

Manipulating the bed was hard work, and for many years the physiotherapists in the department were assisted by Steve Hill, a burly orderly from northern England, who often took charge of the rocking manoeuvre.  Every Wednesday the bronchiectatic patients would be admitted for bronchoscopies and it was the physiotherapist’s job to clear their chests.  Patients lay on the bed for twenty minutes or so and spat their sputum into tin pots with lids that were lifted by a small thumb lever.  At the end of the session, the pot insert was removed and measured with a ruler.  The sputum production was duly recorded and reported to the patient’s physician.  A regular succession of patients came down to the department, and on some days the only treatment that the physiotherapists performed was with patients on the rocker.

Postural drainage and manual techniques have become much less common since the advent of the forced expiratory manoeuvre, flutter and PEP, and apart from Sheila Glendining’s half-page article about the rocker bed, published in the New Zealand Journal of Physiotherapy in 1968, there have been no other accounts of apparatus of this sort.

NB: Originally written as part of the New Zealand Centenary History Project.

Posted by Dave Nicholls

Dave Nicholls is a Professor of Critical Physiotherapy in the School of Clinical Sciences at AUT University in Auckland, New Zealand. He is a physiotherapist, lecturer, researcher and writer, with a passion for critical thinking in and around the physical therapies. David is the founder of the Critical Physiotherapy Network, an organisation that promotes the use of cultural studies, education, history, philosophy, sociology, and a range of other disciplines in the study of the profession’s past, present and future. He is also co-founder and chair of the International Physiotherapy History Association Executive, and founding Executive member of the Environmental Physiotherapy Association. David’s own research work focuses on the philosophy, sociology, and critical history of physiotherapy, and considers how physiotherapy might need to adapt to the changing economy of health care in the 21st century. He has published numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, many as first author. His first book – The End of Physiotherapy (Routledge, 2017) – was the first book-length critical history of the profession. A second sole-authored book – Physiotherapy Otherwise – was published in early 2022 as a free pdf/eBook (available from https://ojs.aut.ac.nz/tuwhera-open-monographs/catalog/book/8). He was co-editor on the first collection of critical physiotherapy writings – Manipulating Practices (Cappelen Damm, 2018) – and was the lead editor for the follow-up – Mobilising Knowledge (Routledge, 2020). He is also very active on social media, writing weekly on contemporary critical physiotherapy issues (criticalphysio.substack.com). He has taught in physiotherapy programmes in the UK and New Zealand for over 30 years and has presented his work around the world.

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