1-5 October 2009 Sydney Convetion Centre

Professor Gert Kwakkel started his career as a physiotherapist in the department of Neurology and Neurosurgery at the VU University Medical Centre of Amsterdam in 1982. Subsequently, he obtained a MSc degree in Human Movement Science at the Vrije Universiteit in 1993.

Based on a grant from the Dutch Heart Association in 1994, he proceeded to conduct doctoral research in the Department Physical Therapy at the Vrije Universiteit. For this purpose he researched the effects of intensity of upper and lower limb training after stroke.

At this moment more than 75 scientific papers are published in peer reviewed journals such as Lancet and Stroke. Currently, Professor Gert Kwakkel has a chair of Neurorehabilitation at the VU University Medical Centre in Amsterdam. In particular his chair is dedicated to translational research in which knowledge from pre-clinical research is used for a better understanding of functional change in the field of stroke rehabilitation.

He is president of the Dutch Society of Neurorehabilitation and Managing editor of the journal Neurorehabilitation and Neural Repair (NNR). Prof. Kwakkel has participated in several national and international steering committees for the development of guidelines on stroke management. In addition, he is a senior lecturer at the faculty of human movement science in Amsterdam and is appointed to the position of visiting professor in the faculty of health, social work and education in the University of Northumbria in Great-Brittain.