Early IFOMPT

Last week saw the 2016 International Federation of Orthopaedic Manipulative Physical Therapists (IFOMPT) conference in Glasgow and watching some of the social media feed from the conference I was reminded how far the organization has come since its inception in the early 1970s, and yet at the same time, how much has stayed the same.

I have quite a long history with IFOMPT. 10 years ago I began a centenary history project with the New Zealand Society of Physiotherapists which culminated in the Society’s fabulous virtual archive (link). As part of the project I got to interview about 50 of New Zealand’s most prominent physiotherapists. This included interviewing the men and women who had been instrumental in establishing manual and manipulative therapy, and giving New Zealand it’s enviable reputation for musculoskeletal physiotherapy.

People like Stan Paris, Rob McKenzie, Brian Mulligan, Ian Searle, Ace Neame…all these interviews can be heard on the NZSP’s history website (link above).

They also gave me photos from the first IFOMPT meeting in Gran Canaria, when some of the greatest names in manipulative therapy (Cyriax, Stoddard, Greive, Kaltenborn) gathered for a month in Gran Canaria to exchange practice ideas and enjoy each other’s company.

I also edited a brief history of the New Zealand Manipulative Physiotherapists Association a few years ago (NZMPA 40th anniversary booklet), and this includes some nice pictures for those of you interested in the history of musculoskeletal physiotherapy.

*In a sad footnote to this blogpost, one of the early advocates and pioneers of musculoskeletal physiotherapy in New Zealand and abroad – Barbara Hetherington – passed away suddenly this morning. Barbara was someone else I interviewed as part of the NZSP centenary celebrations. You can hear her interviewed here. Among her many accomplishments, Barbara picked up the work of completing the first reasonably comprehensive history of physiotherapy in New Zealand when Enid Anderson became sick (Anderson 1977) and was a passionate advocate for New Zealand physiotherapists. She will be very sadly missed.