100 Milestones of Physical Therapy

World War I had just ended. Throughout the war, reconstruction aides, the predecessors to modern physical therapists, worked tirelessly to do their part, treating the many casualties of war and getting soldiers back on their feet. These strong women had proven their value as medical professionals – war heroes –..Read More

The AWPTA had closed out its first year, which was a busy one. The members were planning for their first annual convention that summer. They also were seeking official recognition from the American Medical Association, were working to lay a strong foundation for the profession, and emphasizing the need to..Read More

In 1926 Gertrude Beard was elected president of APA. Under her leadership, APA saw much change. Significantly, she was the first president who had not served as a reconstruction aide. With her election came a shift in association leadership from the east coast, where it had traditionally been concentrated, to..Read More

As the profession continued to grow and APA continued to advocate for stronger standards and increased education, the New York University became the first to launch a full, four-year bachelor of science program for physical therapists. Graduates now earned a BS degree, raising the level of education available and with..Read More

Following closely on the heels of establishing an outside registry came APA’s first Code of Ethics and Discipline, adopted at its annual conference in Atlantic City, New Jersey. This code not only expanded on the primacy of the physician’s diagnosis and prescription in carrying out physical therapy treatments, but it..Read More

In 1940 the majority of physical therapy educational programs shifted from the hospital to the university setting. This marked the start of an important new trend in physical therapist education.

The first special interest sections met at the association’s annual conference in Palo Alto, California.

APA’s annual meetings during the war years became more professional, offering continuing education programs at Stanford University in connection with APA’s 1941 annual conference. Thirty-seven members signed up for the 1941 program, gaining credits in advanced kinesiology, therapeutic gymnastics, skeletal muscle and motor activity in health and diseases, and “the..Read More

The association moved into its first official headquarters in New York City, where the organization was founded. Mildred Elson became the first executive director of APA.

The House of Delegates voted to change the association’s name to the American Physical Therapy Association from the American Physiotherapy Association, which had been its name since 1922.

Florence P. and Henry O. Kendall were pioneers in research in the field of physical therapy, conducting groundbreaking research at the height of the polio epidemic to establish baselines for normal function in children and young adults. They believed that no modern PT should treat “abnormal” conditions without knowing what..Read More

The World Confederation for Physical Therapy held its first formal meeting in Copenhagen. Mildred Elson, APTA’s first executive director, was elected to serve as WCPT’s first president. Five years later, in 1956, APTA would cohost the second WCPT World Congress in New York City, where Elson would be one of..Read More

The 1950s brought with them a significant spirt of growth for APTA. Membership was increasing at a significant rate. Similarly, there was immense growth in state chapters. In 1951 all but four states or territories had at least one chapter, and by 1955 all of them had representation. (Early on,..Read More

Over the years there had been many articles in Physical Therapy Review about physical therapists providing better scientific data on their work, one of the hallmarks of a true profession. A few members obliged with worthy contributions to the research literature. Among the more impressive works were Margaret Moore’s three-part..Read More

The earliest and most prestigious recognition offered by APTA for achievement is the Mary McMillan Lecture Award, which was established in 1962 by the Board of Directors in memory of the association’s beloved first president and physical therapy trailblazer. Mildred O. Elson delivered the first lecture in 1964, and Helen..Read More

Among the many initiatives launched during Lyndon Johnson’s presidency, none had a greater impact on physical therapists than enactment in 1965 of the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Medicare (which was appended to the 1935 Social Security Act as Title XVIII) provided federal funding for many of the medical costs of..Read More

The Lucy Blair Service Award was established in 1969 to honor the long and dedicated service of Lucy Blair, to be given to one or more members each year for contributions of exceptional value to the association. Blair was the sole first recipient in 1969, and service pins were awarded..Read More

In 1964 APTA’s Board of Directors appointed an ad hoc committee to look into bringing non-physical therapist assistive personnel into some kind of formalized relationship with physical therapists. As a result of the committee’s favorable findings, APTA in 1967 adopted a policy statement that set the foundations for the birth..Read More

In the early days of the profession, before APTA had created its own system of professional certification, registration through the American Registry of Physical Therapists (ARPT) (formerly known as the American Registry of Physical Therapy Technicians) — controlled by the American Medical Association (AMA) — had provided a limited form..Read More

APTA was no stranger to working to shape policy, and leadership had always well understood the importance of maintaining a strong voice on Capitol Hill. To protect and champion the needs of the profession and its members APTA needed to be heard by lawmakers. That had been one reason for..Read More

Early in physical therapy education, individuals of racial or ethnic minority groups attended predominantly white institutions because no minority-serving institutions had established physical therapy programs. Prior to the 1960s, due in part to institutional discrimination, there were fewer opportunities for minority students than there were for their white counterparts to..Read More

On November 29, 1975, President Gerald Ford signed into law the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, later called the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). This was significant to the physical therapy profession because with it its passage physical therapist practice began moving increasingly into the public school systems...Read More

The first Combined Sections Meeting (CSM) was held in Washington, DC. It drew more than 1,000 attendees. By 2018, CSM was attracting more than 17,000 attendees per year.

In 1978, as a part of APTA’s efforts to establish a mechanism within the physical therapy profession for training and certifying clinical specialists, the association’s Task Force on Clinical Specialization produced a specialist certification program designed to give formal recognition to individuals with advanced knowledge, skills, and abilities in a..Read More

The profession’s efforts to enhance postbaccalaureate education in physical therapy are at least as old as the mid-1940s, when Stanford University pioneered a post-entry-level certificate program in physical therapy. Other schools followed with postbaccalaureate certificate programs, notably at Boston University, the University of Southern California, New York University (NYU), and..Read More

The Henry O. Kendall and Florence P. Kendall Award for Outstanding Achievement in Clinical Practice originally was developed by APTA’s Maryland Chapter to recognize outstanding clinicians for excellence in clinical practice. The award celebrates the nationally recognized husband and wife clinician team who were prominent leaders in physical therapy. Through..Read More

The assemblies within the House of Delegates came about as a means of allowing physical therapist assistant members a structure through which they could meet their unique needs. In 1983 several affiliate members, including Virginia May, Cheryl Carpenter, and Tricia Garrison, petitioned the House for recognition as a nonvoting component,..Read More

By the 1980s the number of special interest sections and subsidiary special interest groups, or SIGs, had grown markedly. There was some concern that APTA was becoming too fragmented, but it was far outweighed by the reality that APTA could not singularly meet all the specialized needs of its membership,..Read More

The Marquette Challenge was created in 1989 by physical therapy students at Marquette University as an annual student-led fundraiser to support physical therapy research through the Foundation for Physical Therapy. The idea was for physical therapy programs to compete against each other to raise money during each yearly campaign. The..Read More

Equal opportunity in employment was federally mandated in 1973, but it soon became apparent that lack of specific language and implementation guidelines made progress toward nondiscrimination extremely slow. Subsequent efforts to make what were widely agreed to be basic human rights available culminated in 1990 when on July 26 President..Read More

Spurred by requests for a national celebration of physical therapy by the House of Delegates dating as far back as the mid-1960s, APTA and participating components began to celebrate Physical Therapy Week in the early 1980s. The week was initially observed in conjunction with APTA’s annual conference in June and..Read More

By the early 1990s, the profession had evolved significantly and there were two levels of degrees with which a physical therapist could graduate: a four-year bachelor’s degree and a professional master’s degree. While the bachelor’s degree was being offered, by this point more than half of the 148 physical therapist..Read More

In 1995 the World Confederation for Physical Therapy (WCPT) convened its 12th Congress in Washington, D.C., marking only the second time it had met in the United States since its inception in 1951. At the 1995 gathering, which drew more than 8,000 delegates from the U.S. and overseas, attendees had..Read More

In 1996, Shirley A. Sahrmann became the first recipient of the prestigious John H.P. Maley Lecture Award. The award was established to recognize an APTA physical therapist member who demonstrated clinical expertise and significant contributions to the profession, with the recipient delivering a lecture at APTA’s annual meeting. Sahrmann presented..Read More

In 2000, APTA was focused on strategic change. The organization felt change was critical to the future of the profession, the association, and the patients and consumers its members treat. As a result, APTA’s House of Delegates adopted “Vision 2020,” a new path forward for the profession. The vision included..Read More

In 2003 APTA and its components were working to push through two important pieces of legislation. One, the Medicare Patient Access to Physical Therapists Act, would provide for direct access to physical therapists under Medicare, and the other, the Medicare Access to Rehabilitation Services Act, would repeal the Medicare therapy..Read More

The National Assembly (NA) for PTAs was a great idea for its time. All PTA members automatically were members of the NA, which was a forum for PTAs to discuss issues related to motions coming before the House of Delegates and decide which to support or oppose. But, as the..Read More

To support APTA’s Vision 2020, APTA in 2006 launched Open Door, a members-only online portal to peer-reviewed literature. Through subscriptions secured by APTA, Open Door provided members free online access to two databases that together offered access to the full text of more than 1,000 scientific journals to help PTs..Read More

Achieving direct access had long been a major initiative for APTA. In October 2009, the association hosted and led the International Summit on Direct Access and Advanced Scope of Practice in Physical Therapy, a conference that was organized to investigate advanced models of physical therapist practice both in the United..Read More

A first-of-its-kind event for APTA and the physical therapy profession, PASS — held in a think tank-type atmosphere at a prominent retreat center outside Washington, D.C. — brought together physical therapists with non-physical therapists representing government, health policy, academia, engineering, bioscience, and information technology. Its specific aim, per the 2006..Read More

The American Council of Academic Physical Therapy (ACAPT) was formed to provide a unified voice for academic physical therapy — supporting excellence in research and scholarship, professional and community service, and academic and professional leadership. Previously, academic institutions were represented through a special interest group of academic administrators within APTA’s..Read More

The multi-decade struggle to achieve direct access in every state and locality was all about celebrating successes, conveying momentum, and encouraging chapters’ efforts to fight access restrictions. Given fierce opposition from physician groups, chiropractors, and others, every win — however large or small — was considered important. In some cases,..Read More

A long-anticipated dream to create a center specifically targeted to foster stronger physical therapist leadership in health policy and health services research was born in 2015. Named the Center on Health Services Training and Research (CoHSTAR), the project was brought into being by the Foundation for Physical Therapy with an..Read More

To support APTA’s mission to advance and enhance the profession, APTA launched three new councils to focus on various areas of practice. The Frontiers in Rehabilitation, Science, and Technology (FiRST) Council was established in February 2016 as a community for interested stakeholders. FiRST grew out of identification of high-priority areas..Read More

To increase PTAs’ knowledge and skills in a select area of physical therapy, in 2004 APTA established a program called Recognition of Advanced Proficiency for the Physical Therapist Assistant. In 2014 APTA launched a companion program, PTA Advanced Proficiency Pathways (PTA APP). By 2016 it was clear that PTA APP..Read More

The transition to value-based care requires accountability for patient outcomes, evaluating the effectiveness of interventions, and making technical and organizational changes — all within an evolving and sometimes complicated payment system. The ability to demonstrate and quantify the value of physical therapist interventions is powerful leverage, when it comes to..Read More

Enactment of the Balanced Budget Act (BBA) in 1997 placed an annual cap on rehabilitation services under Medicare. Almost immediately Congress recognized the cap’s potential harmful effect on Medicare beneficiaries and moved to provide an annual exceptions process to prevent the actual implementation of a hard cap on physical therapist..Read More

On January 22, 2019, current and former APTA leaders gathered in Alexandria, Virginia, to celebrate the groundbreaking of APTA Centennial Center, a 7-story, 115,000-square-foot building that would become the association’s headquarters beginning in 2021. The decision to build a new headquarters was carefully considered. An exploratory work group of APTA..Read More

In early 2020, when the world began hearing reports of a virulent and deadly new disease spreading rapidly through Wuhan, China, no one knew what it would eventually mean for the global population and how what would become known as COVID-19, the disease resulting from spread of the novel coronavirus,..Read More

January 15, 2021, marks 100 years to the day since the first meeting of APTA’s founders at Keens Chophouse (now known as Keens Steakhouse) in New York City. That initial meeting of these courageous and dedicated founding women led to the start of what became one of America’s largest associations,..Read More