The History of Physical Therapy: At Glance
Talking about the physical therapy we will be talking from the time before century. Physical therapy amusingly has been on the table since 460 BC that was performed by the physicians Hippocrates and the followed by Galen to help people who had a problem with the motion dysfunction. The help that they offered were including physical therapy, advocating massage, manual therapy, and hydrotherapy (or now is well known with the aquatic therapy). The practice that was done by Hippocrates and Galen were known as the oldest, the first physical therapy in the history. And both of them are the first practitioners at that time. The history of the physical therapy at glance will give you a little hint of development of physical therapy since the first time it was invented until the modern era in when people are using the physical therapy as the way to recover from the post surgical phase, or preparing to do surgery, also for rehabilitation.
The development of the physical therapy was boosted in the eighteenth century in the field of orthopedic which is the invention of the gymnasticon machine which at that time helped to treat the similar disease like motion and muscles dysfunction by the systemic treatment as exercise and combination of physical therapy. By the time, the history of the physical therapy was found in Sweden by the Per Henrik Ling who was known as the Father of Swedish Gymnastic. Back then he founded the Royal Central Institute of Gymnastic in 1813 for exercise and muscles manipulation. Basically having the same purpose as the current physical therapy, the old day therapy focuses on improving the ability and to cure the problem in motion. Even though the establishment of the Royal Cental Institute of Gymnastic was already in 1813, but the acknowledgment of this institute by the Swedish government, the Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare was taken place in 1883.
Followed by the other countries like Great Britain who established the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, the history of physical therapy kept moving on. The establishment of department dedicated for the physical therapy for regular people or for athlete was followed by New Zealand in 1913. New Zealand built the School of Physiotherapy in the University of Otago. Coming up to the Northern part of the world again, United States of America made move in 1914 with the Reed College in Portland, Oregon. This institution had graduated the reconstruction aides. From this time the history of the physical therapy entering the phase when the modern physical therapy has been started with the involvement of spinal manipulative therapy.
