Aproximación a la HIstoria de la Fisioterapia Española desde las fuentes documentales

Introduction. The lack of historical studies about the professional process of institutionalization and the scientific development of Physiotherapy in Spain as well as our interest in understanding the process of construction of Physiotherapy, lead us to propose the present work whose main aim is the revision of the most outstanding sources in the construction of the historical thought of Physiotherapy in our country. Material and method.The comparative historical method was used. Looking up the most important database related to Physiotherapy, the specific foundations of history and the files of the Spanish Association of Physiotherapists (818 documents from 1970 and 1995), we proceeded to carry out an overall synthesis of the most significant studies and documents for the histo- riographycal analysis of physiotherapy in Spain. The statistical package SPSS 14.0 was used for the analysis and treatment of the data taken from the study. Results and main conclusions. Most of the studies of the History of Physiotherapy in Spain approaches the uses of different physical agents and their therapeutical purpose through historical periods before contemporany time. In the sixties, the publication of slight historiographycal contributions begins. The seventies and eighties became the time when different documents related to the process of institutionalization of Physiotherapy in Spain are known. However, the nineties and the forts decade of twenty-first century become the most prolific ones. In this period there are three outstanding studies which, with complete scientific rigour, approach the History of Physiotherapy in Spain. One of them was presented in 2001 and the two others were included within a doctorate programme. The records of SpanishAssociation of Physiotherapists show: the movement of the groups of nurse and physiotherapist from 1970 and 1995, the vicissitudes of the conquer of the University, the social-sanitary problems and the birth and development of the first elements bringing with them the structure of the scientific discipline.