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 the Midwest, with Beard and several members of the new executive committee hailing from Chicago and the vice president from California.
One of the many changes that occurred under her leadership was to the association’s scientific journal, P.T. Review. That year it took the more formal name of Physiotherapy Review. Shortly thereafter it came under the leadership of a new editor, Dorothea Beck. It also began publishing bimonthly instead of quarterly and, in step with the association’s growing professionalism, focused its editorial content on being more substantive and scientific.