REPORT ON THE 7th MEDITERRANEAN CONGRESS OF PHYSICAL AND REHABILITATION MEDICINE;
PORTOROZ (SLOVENIA), SEPTEMBER 18 – 21 2008

Klemen Grabljevec

The 7th Mediterranean congress of PRM was co-organised by the Slovenian Society of PRM and the Mediterranean Forum for PRM and kindly supported by the Slovenian National Institute for Rehabilitation Medicine and its director Mr. Robert Cugelj. The patronage of the event was highly appreciated by the Ministress of health of the Republic of Slovenia Mrs. Zofija Mazej Kukovic. The organizers and participants received the greeting letter from the President of the Republic of Slovenia Mr. Danilo T?rk.

The congress venue was selected carefully by the organising committee and decided to be in the Convention center of the Grand Hotel Bernardin in Portoroz, which offered the possibility of scientific meetings, participants accomodation and exhibition on outstanding level.

The congress was chaired by professor Crt Marincek and international Organising Committee was lead by Klemen Grabljevec, president of Slovenian Society for PRM. The Scientific Committee consisted of panel of distinguished international experts and lead by prof. Helena Burger, who contributed enormous amount of her time and knowledge to evaluate major part of abstracts as well coordinate scientific programme and invited lecturers. The technical part of organisation was perfectly run by the »Cankarjev dom« congress agency and the special acknowledgment goes to Mrs. Alenka Kregar and her team. The MFPRM Board and its president prof. Nicolas Christodoulou supervised the congress from the first preparations untill the last ceremony and cooperation with the organising comittee can be described as excellent.

Just two days before the congress, we were reached by the said news, that prof. Haim Ring from Israel, the honorary member and one of the founding members of the MFPRM, died after short and progressive illness. The event was strongly marked by that sudden loss and prof. Ring memory was honoured by a minute of silence and a comemorative session of a MFPRM board. His legacy and friendliness was mentioned by many lecturers and participants.

The congress allover hosted 610 participants from 42 countries and beside participants from member countries of the Mediterrannean Forum, participants also came from the: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, I.R. Iran, Japan, Lithuania, Netherlands, Poland, Puerto Rico, Russia, Sweden, United Kingdom and USA.

The scientific part of congress consisted of seven plenary lectures, nine workshops, 45 invited lectures, 152 oral presentations and 158 poster presentations.

Topics of the congress were:

• ICF and Functional assesment,
• Virtual rehabilitation and Robotics,
• Rehabilitation of Spinal Cord Injured patients,
• Biomechanics / Gait / Balance,
• Vocational Rehabilitation & Return to Work,
• Sports Injury Rehabilitation,
• Rehabilitation after Traumatic Brain Injury,
• Rehabilitation of Geriatric patients and Community Based Rehabilitation,
• Kinesiology and Isokinetics,
• Rehabilitation of patients after Peripheral Nerve Lesions & Post-Polio Sy,
• Rehabilitation of patients with osteoporosis,
• Constrained induced therapy,
• Management of bladder disfunction,
• Cardiovascular Rehabilitation,
• Functional Electrical Stimulation,
• Rehabilitation of patients after Stroke,
• Rehabilitation of patients with rheumatological and spine disorders,
• Hidrology / Thalassotherapy and
• Other neurological disorders.

The plenary lectures were:

• Current state of the application of the ICF in PRM (G. Stucki, Germany),
• Presentation of MHADIE project (M. Leonardi, Italy),
• Robotics in Rehabilitation (M. Munih, Slovenia),
• Mild TBI – what it really is? (N. Zasler, USA),
• Geriatric rehabilitation: Sarcopenia & Exercise (W.R. Frontera, Puerto Rico) and
• Muscle Pain Syndrome: Evaluation & Tratment (M. Grabois, USA).

Workshops performed:

• Pre-congress workshop (14.-17. sept.): Advanced workshop on Musculoskeletal ultrasound (M. deMuynck; Belgium)
• Functional Electrical Therapy for hemiplegic upper extremity (L. Schwirtlich; Serbia), Bladder management and urodynamics (P. DiBenedetto, Italy),
• Post Traumatic Headache (N. Zasler, USA),
• Kinesiology in clinical practice (A. Delarque, France),
• ICF in clinical practice (G. Stucki, Germany),
• Intraarticular injections (G. Akyuz, Turkey),
• New directions for stroke rehabilitation (N. Soroker, Istrael),
• Publishing in rehabilitation (G. Grimby, Sweden) and
• Problem oriented electrodiagnostics (E. Mohamed, Egypt).

The Executive Board of Mediterrannean Forum organised its regular meetings during the congress as well the Annual Assembly with president elections and voting for the new members of the Executive Board was successfuly organised. The session with presentation of PRM scientific and educational systems in Mediterrannean Forum countries (chaired by N. Christodoulou and K. Grabljevec) was of outstanding importance for networking as well experience and opinion cross-over between the countries representatives.

The responses and evaluations from the participants and exhibitors during the congress and long after, were generally highly ranked. In the name of Organisational Comittee I therefore feel allowed to conclude that the 7th Mediterrannean congress in Portoroz was succesfully organised on the demanded level with many satisfied participants. I am obliged to express again the acknowledgments to all involved experts from the scientific and organisational panels as well to all members of Executive Committe and representatives of National Societies who contributed important role in advertising the Congress among colleauges in their countries.

The 6th Mediterranean Physical and Rehabilitation Medicine Congress

10th Anniversary of the PRM Mediterranean Congress (Herzlyia 1996-Algarve 2006)

Jorge Lains, Chairperson, 6th Mediterranean Congress of the Mediterranean Forum of PRM

The 6th Mediterranean Congress, along with the Congress of the Portuguese Society of PRM, and the interim ISPRM Board meeting, took place in Vilamoura, Portugal, from October 18 to 21, 2006. A total of 620 participants from 46 countries, from the 5 continents, were present. 316 of the participants were Portuguese, representing 51% of all the participants. Among the active participants 40 colleagues came from Spain, 38 from Turkey, 29 from Israel, 20 from Greece, 15 from Serbia and 12 from USA. All colleagues from the developing countries had free or a waved registration (equal to amount of the expenses).

The presence and the collaboration of all the members of the ISPRM Board allowed having some of the most significant figures of PRM in the world. Prominent colleagues and researchers presented the most updated data and state of the art about the several themes that are relevant on the clinical, academic and research fields in Rehabilitation Medicine, helping the congress to reach an outstanding scientific level. During the congress 272 lectures were presented, being 100 Keynote Lectures and 172 Oral Presentations.

During the pre-congress period the Scientific Committee selected the best 24 papers, from all the Oral Presentations. These papers were reviewed by an International Committee, composed by H Ring, Gerold Stucki, Franco Franchignoni and Stefano Negrini that selected the 11 best researches. During the Top Best Mediterranean Research Session, an International Jury and the audience voted for the Best Mediterranean Research Investigator Award, sponsored by the official journal of the Mediterranean Forum PRM - Europa MedicoPhysica.  

The winning paper was: "The Effect of Cardiac Rehabilitation on Quality of Life, Anxiety and Depression in Congestive Heart failure", a research of our Turkish colleague, Yesim Kurtais. 248 posters were presented during the congress. The Portuguese Society PRM offered an Award to the 4 best posters done by PRM residents. The winners were: "Kinematic Analysis of Hyoid and Epiglottic Movement during Swallowing in Strokes" Tairyoon Han and als, from Korea; "Reorganization of language after focal lesion in children: Data from fMRI and Linguistic Tests", O. Elkana and als, from Israel; "Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressive - a case report", Isabel Crespo and Martins Augusto, from Portugal; "Devic's Disease - Case Study", Luis Filipe Guimaraes and als, from Portugal

In total 18 workshops about some of the most important themes in PRM were organized. The actuality of the themes and the possibility to learn with the experts in a very casual and practical way was very important and significant. Patients selected because of the complexity of their pathology were present in some of the workshops allowing a unique opportunity to learn in a real situation.

The social program was carefully prepared to show the Portuguese tastes and culture. Lunches were special moments to experience Portuguese food and wine. The dinners tried to be each day different, offering always something special. Folk music and folk dance, Coimbra Fado and a special "aquavision show" were a part of the social program.

During the Gala Dinner Katia Guerreiro, an ophthalmologist colleague and one of the Portuguese best Fado singers offered us an unforgettable and touching night. Also during the Gala Dinner happened the President's Ceremony, one of the most remarkable moments where all the 6 presidents of the Mediterranean Congresses, the President of the Mediterranean PRM Forum, Nicolas Christodoulou, and our first Honorary Board Member and President of the First Mediterranean Congress, Haim Ring, received homage. This event will be remembered by all and it is an unforgettable moment of the history of the Mediterranean Forum PRM.

The President's Dinner was the opportunity to thanks all the participants that willingly and voluntarily served the 6th Mediterranean Congress PRM with their knowledge and experience.

Participants enjoyed the Mediterranean Spirit: the pleasure of learning and teaching and, at the same time, the pleasure of being with friends and colleagues from all around the world and the pleasure of enjoying the social program.
During the 6th Mediterranean Congress PRM we lived in a world without frontiers in accordance with the Mediterranean Forum slogan - Rehabilitation without frontiers.