Spc. Charley Westerhold, a physical therapy specialist student, performs bedside range-of-motion exercises with Staff Sgt. Anthony Sims, a combat medic with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 4th Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, following his back surgery. Photo by Julia Yubeta.

Physical therapists play vital role in Army's history

Compiled by Capt. Laura N. Bluemle

WBAMC

The tradition of physical therapy education in the Army was born out of necessity. No rehabilitation services, civilian or military, existed to meet the needs of American Soldiers when the United States entered World War I. 

After a quick study of European rehabilitation systems, Army Surgeon General William C. Gorgas consolidated the use of various physical modalities under the term “physiotherapy.” His reconstruction aide training program was conducted at civilian higher education facilities across the country. The enthusiastic “120-day wonders” who graduated from these emergency programs later formed the nucleus of the American Physical Therapy Association. 

The Army Medical Department recognized the need for a formalized physical therapy course of instruction during the early 1920s. Such a course began in the fall of 1922 at Walter Reed General Hospital. The course, only four months long at that time, went through numerous changes in length and content in the following two decades. In 1928, the program received its first accreditation. The students were civilians, and worked as civilians in military hospitals after graduation.

Therapists were granted relative military rank and graduates could apply for commissions upon completion of the program in 1942. Enlisted women were also allowed to become students and then receive a commission. 

Sgt. 1st. Class Kevin J. Carpenter, a military police officer belonging to the Warrior Transition Battalion, does supported crunches for core strengthening at the Replica Aquatic Center. Photo by Clarence Davis III.

World War II increased the need for therapists, and from 1942 through 1946, the Army course – now 26 weeks in length – was run concurrently, on a quarterly basis, at not only Walter Reed, but at other locations such as Fort Sam Houston, Texas; Hot Springs, Ark.; Brigham City, Utah; and White Sulphur Springs, W.Va. 

After the war, the need for therapists declined and the training of new therapists was suspended. The physical therapists already on active duty were included in the newly established Women’s Medical Specialist Corps in 1947. The program was restarted in 1948, at which time the trainees were commissioned as second lieutenants during their schooling. The course work was moved to its current location at Fort Sam Houston. Male therapists were accepted into the WMSC in 1955 and the name was changed to the Army Medical Specialist Corps. 

Julia Gonzalez, a physical therapy assistant, oversees Sgt. Karl Monroe Dirham III of the Mobilization and Deployment Brigade as he utilizes the leg-press machine to strengthen his knee following surgery. Photo by Julia Yubeta.

Before the early 1970s, physical therapists worked in a prescriptive environment during peace time. Then, once again, a major change occurred. After the Vietnam War, the Army had too few orthopedic surgeons to manage huge troop populations with neuromusculoskeletal problems. Based on their performance record and the way they met the expanded scope of practice required in Korea and Vietnam, physical therapists were identified as “physician extenders,” credentialed to evaluate and treat neuromusculoskeletal patients without physician referral. Army physical therapists have been functioning in a direct-access setting for nearly 30 years. 

Physical therapy as a profession had its inception in the Army. The first physical therapy unit was assigned in 1919 to Fort Sam Houston, which was also the site of the first formal training program for physical therapists. 

The Army remains at the forefront of the profession, pioneering practice without physician referral in the early 1970s. Today, the Army continues to be a leader in physical therapy education, practice and research.