-
Hippocrates and Galenus used manual massage therapy and water therapy to treat people. (Chapa, 2014)
-
Per Henrik Ling, also known as the Father of Swedish Gymnastics, creates the Royal Central Institute of gymnastics for "massage, muscle manipulation, and exercise" (Chapa, 2014).
-
In Sweden, the National Board of Health and Welfare gives Physical Therapists official registration to work in the field of Healthcare (Chapa, 2014).
-
Reed College is created and becomes the first university to offer physical therapist classes in the United States.
-
When Polio hit the United States, physical therapy had massive growth. It was used to help treat "patients whose brain stems and spinal cord had been affected by polio leading to paralysis, muscular atrophy, and permanent deformities (Evolution of Physical Therapy, 2020).
-
During World War I, women were mass recruited as physical therapists to help injured soldiers recover. At this point in time, the term "reconstruction aide" was used to describe the profession of PT (Chapa, 2014).
-
The first physical therapy research journal was released by Oxford academic. This would be the first of many studies that began after the war in order to better understand how physical therapy can benefit severe injuries and serious disabilities (Noble, 1921).
-
The American Physical Therapy Association was created in order to better equip therapists to handle the different needs of their patients. This organization helped to also advance physical therapists in their profession so that they could be more qualified.
-
In the present day, technology has had a massive impact in the world of health care. Innovations such as robotic limbs and cryotherapy chambers are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to physical therapy. All these new inventions have helped reduce the amount of time someone might be injured and also reduced their chances of even getting injured again.