Start late, develop quickly

"Our work is not widely understood even today. But more Chinese people now know rehabilitation when compared to 20 years ago," said Guo, who was one of the earliest academically educated physical therapists in China.

As early as the 1950s, there was physical treatment in Chinese hospitals, yet modern rehabilitation medicine was introduced to the country only in the 1980s, much later than many developed countries, such as Japan and the US.

"The development of rehabilitation goes hand in hand with economy, as people's demand of a high-quality life gives rise to the need of rehabilitation. Thanks to the blossoming economy, rehabilitation medicine has developed quickly in the past 40 years."

In 1982, Sun Yat-sen University in South China's Guangdong province launched the first rehabilitation research center in China. And the Chinese Association of Rehabilitation Medicine was founded in 1983 with its office set in the China-Japan Friendship Hospital. And the institution joined the International Rehabilitation Medicine Association in 2001.

Chinese government also provided a strong hand to the rehabilitation medicine. In 2011, the Ministry of Health of China (now the National Health Commission of China) issued a policy, requiring Grade II and III hospitals (Chinese hospitals are classified into three levels- Garde I, Grade II and Grade III, among which the last group is the top level) must be equipped with rehabilitation medicine department. Such policy further pushed the rehabilitation medicine to boom nationwide.