Physical therapy is a medical profession dealing and treating patients with disabilities, disease or severe injury or trauma resulting to immobility or less body function. Treatments provided are dedicated in resolving these disabilities and reducing the patient’s discomfort especially for pain management treatments.
There are doctors who would rather have their patients go to physical therapist than surgery. Physical therapy can address different kinds of physical problems, it can be orthopaedic, neurological, vascular or even respiratory problems.
Physical therapy history can be traced as early as the period of Hippocrates and Hector who were the earliest physicians. Which is why physical therapy or physiotherapy is considered an old medicine. Hippocrates, Hector and ancient Greece physicians started using massage and hydrotherapy to treat illnesses.
Hydrotherapy is a method of treatment using water. Hydrotherapy uses the properties of water like pressure and temperature to have therapeutic effects on the patient’s body. With hydrotherapy the body releases the toxins and said to treat certain diseases. This kind of physical therapy can be traced to ancient cultures in China, Japan and Rome.
Ancient Greek has been using massage since 460 B.C. But the earliest documented use of actual physical therapy as a profession can be traced on 1894 in Great Britain. There were four nurses that formed the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy. New Zealand followed when they formed their own organization in 1913. The United States closely followed when they formed their own organization in 1914.
In 1916, there was an epidemic of poliomyelitis or most popularly known as polio in New York and New England. Many cases of poliomyelitis can lead to temporary paralysis, but without proper treatment the paralysis can be lifetime effect. During this period, there were documentation of young women treating patients of the epidemic.