9th International Conference on
Conservative Management of Spinal Deformities
7th SOSORT Meeting
Milan (Italy) 10-12 May 2012
2nd SOSORT Educational Course – 8th R&R Meeting
Milan (Italy) 8-9 May 2012
The "SOSORT week"
Educational ISICO courses: 7-16 May 2012
Welcome
Welcome in Milan to all SOSORT members and guests !
The Local Organizing Committee, the International Scientific Committee, and ISICO welcome all most distinguished researchers of the field of conservative treatment of scoliosis for the 9th International Conference on Conservative Management of Spinal Deformities, 7th SOSORT Annual Meeting. After Barcelona, Milan, Poznan, Boston, Athens, Lyon, Montreal and Barcelona it is now time to come back to Milan in 2012. The Meeting highlights include this year:
- Scientific Sessions: we look forward to receive more abstracts than ever, maintaining the continuous growth of these years;
- Consensus Session: led by Patrick Knott, will focus on “Imaging: how much and when”;
- Invited Lecture by the Scoliosis Research Society (SRS), Stephens B Richards;
- Key Note Speakers: this year we will deepen the scientific basis of idiopathic scoliosis, thanks to Lorenzo Aulisa (biomechanics), Nicola Smania (neurophysiology), and Adriano Ferrari (lessons from secondary neurological scoliosis);
- SOSORT Award: will focus the best submitted papers, as judged by a Jury chaired by the International Scientific Committee President, Toru Maruyama;
- Presidential Address;
- Controversial Issues Sessions: “When to fuse or not to fuse”, moderated by the SOSORT Past-President, surgeon and conservative expert, Tomasz Kotwicki, Lecturers, the Presidents of the SRS and SOSORT, Stephen Richards and Stefano Negrini respectively; and "Exercises for scoliosis treatment: which evidence, which use ?", moderated by Scoliosis Journal Chief-Editor, Theodoros B Grivas, Lecturers, Nigel Price for the SRS and Manuel Rigo for SOSORT.
- Lifetime SOSORT Honorary Membership Prize: after Jacques Chêneau and Christa Lehnert-Schroth, awarded in Barcelona 2004 and recognized this year by the SOSORT Board, we will start a new tradition with Min H Mehta and Antonio Negrini.
Before the Meeting, the 2nd Educational SOSORT Course will be held, combined this year with the 8th R&R ISICO Meeting (already a tradition in Italy):
- one day, the SOSORT Guidelines will be exposed by the leading SOSORT teachers in a practical way, combined with a short presentation of the evidence-based bracing and specific physiotherapical exercise schools;
- one day, 2 practical whole-day workshops (one on bracing, the other on specific physiotherapical exercises) will deepen the techniques shortly presented the day before.
We hope in this way to face the needs of all the team involved in scoliosis conservative treatment: physicians, orthotists, physiotherapists, chiropractors and other professionals.
Together with science, it is worth underlying that all of you are welcome to Italy, the Country of friendship, culture, “slow food", and tourism, and to Milan, the town of fashion, shopping … and scoliosis conservative treatment !
- Friendship: Italians are friendly and warm, and always ready to receive and welcome foreigners; Milan is usually in a hurry, due to its industrial leadership and role, but people here are waiting for you;
- Culture: no matter where you go in Italy, you will always find a church, a building, a statue, a painting that will astonish you; in Milan the Leonardo da Vinci’s Cenacolo, the Duomo, the Brera Museum, but also the Castello Sforzesco, the Navigli, the S. Ambrogio Basilica, the S. Lorenzo columns, and many more historical and cultural points are ready to welcome you;
- Food: many of you use to eat at Italian Restaurants around the world: believe me, in Italy it's much better ! We are ready to welcome you with a wonderful Italian eating experience during the Meeting, but we also suggest you, beyond the world renewed restaurants, to move and discover by yourself the little “trattorie” run on a family basis, that offer wonderful food at low price;
- Tourism: come to Milan and then move in 1 hour, just for one day or more, to the North (lakes and mountains), or to the South (Liguria seaside), but also to our big, world-renowned cities: Venice (2.5 hours by high-speed train), Florence (2 hours), Rome (3 hours) or even Naples (4.5 hours) or Turin (1 hour).
- Fashion: Milan is known in the world, together with Paris, for the best fashion; in this town you will feel it just moving around and looking at people's dresses and behaviours, and you will see it in the best shops downtown, but also in the style even of low cost dresses in big shopping centers: it is in the soul of the city;
- Shopping: coming to Milan is a shopping experience, from downtown, high-cost Galleria and Corso Vittorio Emanuele, around the Duomo Cathedral, to the many little shops spread in town, where you can also find low-cost high-quality Italian design dresses and many other items that will increase your quality of life !
- Scoliosis conservative treatment: this is not well known, but while Milan ranks “only” 27th in the world (6th in Europe) among the cities where have been published PubMed/Medline high quality scientific papers on scoliosis (source: www.gopubmed.org; keyword “scoliosis[mesh]”), it ranks 2nd associating “bracing” (after Montreal; keywords “scoliosis[mesh] AND brace[mesh]”), and 1st associating “exercises” (keywords “scoliosis[mesh] AND exercise[mesh]”): it is worth coming to this source of specific knowledge in this field;
Hopefully this 2012 Milan Meeting will be another cornerstone in the building of SOSORT. In 2005 in Milan SOSORT has been founded, after the first International Meeting in Barcelona in 2004. In 2005 we started the tradition of the SOSORT Consensuses, producing the most read paper in the history of our Journal “Scoliosis” (www.scoliosisjournal.com). Milan is already in the history of SOSORT, and now we want to strengthen this position with more than a week of initiatives, offering also a series of courses (SEAS Courses on specific physiotherapical exercises, mainly for physiotherapists and other exercise professionals; and SpoRT-Sforzesco Courses on bracing, mainly for physicians and orthotists) to let the colleagues that will come to Milan, discover what in these years made of this town an international referent of scoliosis conservative treatment.
Dear SOSORT members and guests, welcome to the 9th International Conference on Conservative Management of Spinal Deformities, 7th SOSORT Annual Meeting, and all the science it can give to you; welcome to Milan, and to the wonderful experiences our town and Country can (and will) offer you !
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Stefano Negrini |