1-5 October 2009 Sydney Convetion Centre

Sydney, 3-5 October 2009

SPA 2009 is going to be a conference that changes your practice of physiotherapy. As the conference speaker line-up is falling into place, our policy of presenting research that will change clinical practice is bearing fruit. After an extensive process of finding out what participants wanted to see in the conference, we are loosely constructing the sessions around body regions, and treatment techniques.

Dr Chris Powers has been at the forefront of an emerging line of research which suggests that the control of the patella is significantly influenced by the hip joint, while Jenny McConnell’s ground breaking research has driven our practice of management for more time than I care to remember. Jenny continues to evolve her management, and Dr. Kay Crossley’s input into this session describing treatment and contributing factors in patello-femoral arthritis will be presenting world leading research.

Craig Purdam has recently formalised what every sports physio has known for many years in becoming a specialist physiotherapist. As Craig manages to stay at the forefront of clinical practice in day-to-day work at the AIS we will also benefit from his close involvement with world leading research into tendon, bone, and muscle pathology as he describes the “State of the Art” in management of injuries in each of these regions – where we have got it right, mistakes we’ve made, and where work still needs to be done. If you ever treat someone with an injury to a tendon, muscle, or a bone, you’ll want to hear this keynote presentation.

Dry needling has become an integral part of many physio’s armament, and many more are at least glancingly interested in this therapy, but many of us wonder “what’s the science?” behind. Dr. Jay Shah will be presenting the findings of his extraordinary research whereby he has miniaturised a dialysis technique allowing him to sample the chemical milieu of a trigger point, and see how it varies from control site, more importantly the response of these trigger points to dry needling therapy. Dr. Helene Langevin has combined anatomy, medicine, and acupuncture in her research enabling her to describe, through electron microscopy examination, the effect of needle manipulation on the subcutaneous fascia, as well as describing a proposed mechanism of action for acupuncture that centres on the correlation of fascial planes with acupuncture meridians. It certainly would be interesting to learn that the centuries old practice of acupuncture needle manipulation was predating 21st idea of mechanotransduction as a therapy.

Dr. Ben Kibler is most famous for changing the way physios assess and treat shoulder pathology with his emphasis on scapular control. More recently he has described a unique pathology (and it’s surgical management) which could explain the cause of long-standing unremitting cervico-thoracic spine pain after whiplash-injury. It would seem that many subjects suffer an avulsion of periscapular muscles in such injuries, and treatment aimed at the neck or thoracic spine will remain doomed to fail until these muscles are re-attached. Dr. Kibler will describe what to look for in this pathology, and how to manage it, along with his ever informative and entertaining shoulder assessment and treatment workshop.

Dr Peter O’Sullivan is leading a line of research that describes altered patterns of movement in back pain, and the means to identify and treat these sub-groups, while Dr. Mark Laslett has justifiably become internationally renowned for his work on Clinical Prediction Rules in low back pain. Patrick Farhart when he isn’t the physio for the NSW cricket team, has conducted ground breaking research into what predicts back pain in fast bowlers, and his counter-intuitive findings will challenge what you know about ‘core control’ but give you a means of explaining the link between failed landing strategies in knee reconstructions, ankle sprains, and fast bowlers with stress fractures.

Professor Rick Lieber has spent a lifetime working with clinicians and knows intimately where their interest lies. Accordingly he is able to direct us to the pre-eminent research into muscle physiology where it most interests physiotherapists in practice. Dr David Allen has worked extensively on the cellular mechanisms of muscle fatigue and have also done a considerable amount of work on stretch-induced muscle damage.  In the latter area his recent contribution has been to define the role of stretch-activated channels in allowing Ca entry following eccentric contractions.  His research indicates this Ca entry has important roles in hypertrophy and in the muscle damage that can result from eccentric contractions. For some time physios have wondered why heavy load eccentric exercise is superior to concentric in the management of non-insertional tendonopathy - how could the tendon be aware of the mode of action of the contractile element and adjust anything in response? Dr. Allen's research could well shed light on this paradox and help us further our management of muscle and tendon pathology accordingly.

For some 15 or more years Anthony Hogan has made athletic groin pain his main clinical focus, along the way becoming the physio of first and last resort for pretty much all of Australia's AFL teams, and a great majority of soccer as well. Anthony has recently returned from London consulting to, among others, English Premier League Soccer organisations It's our good fortune to have Anthony's guiding hand in organising a highlight "Athletic Groin Pain" session which will include anatomy, diagnosis, rehabilitation, surgical options, and injury prevention where Alison Grimaldi will also be able to present her research on the integration of real time ultrasound and retraining of the hip musculature.  Amanda Turner will be presenting on the topic of managing the adductor component.

Craig Allingham has recently changed his career direction and the profession’s loss will be our conference’s gain as he helps us gain insight into the most difficult aspect of our career “When to stop”. The “recovering physiotherapist” will present, in his always engaging manner his views on being a member of Generation Y-Not and how to plan your career. I only wish I was a new graduate so I could hear him tell me this at the start of my career.

What’s different about my sport? Expert physiotherapists from different sport backgrounds will present the unique aspects of presentation, diagnosis, and management of sporting injury for their given sport. After the conclusion of each of these brief podium presentations, the speakers will then proceed to a group workshop where we can compare and contrast the different diagnosis, presentation, management, and prevention of injury. This aims to be an intensely practical and focussed session allowing for much in the way of cross-pollination of ideas from different sporting backgrounds.

There’s plenty more to come, and some juicy speakers that space prevents me from putting in, so I look forward to seeing you there.

SPA Scientific Committee
Chair: Rod Whiteley

As a part of the 2009 Sports Physiotherapy Australia Conference, the APA, in conjunction with Nike, would like to offer all registered members to this conference a professional fitting of Nike footwear, and a pair of Nike running shoes.
                        To find out more click here

Keynote Speakers

Dr Ben Kibler
Dr Helen Langevin
Professor Richard Lieber
A/Professor Christopher M. Powers
Craig Purdam
Dr Jay Shah

Invited Speakers

Craig Allingham
Peter Blanch
Dr Mark Hancock
Mark Laslett
Jenny McConnell
Peter O'Sullivan
Craig Payne

Sports Physiotherapy Australia Conference Program

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Monday 5 October 2009
8.30–9.30	Session Sponsored by: Plenary Session 3: Managing a footballer with a challenging case of groin pain Chair: Anthony Hogan Room: Bayside Terrace
8.30-8.45	Presenter: Anthony Hogan Topic: Managing the pubic component
8.45-9.00	Presenter: Alison Grimaldi Topic: Managing the hip component
9.00-9.15	Presenter: Amanda Turner Topic: Managing the adductor component
9.15-9.30	Presenter: Anthony Hogan Directed Discussion and Q&A
9.30-10.30	Plenary Session 3 (Continued): Spinal Pain Chair: Mary Magary Room: Bayside Terrace
9.30-9.50	Presenter: Dr Peter O'Sullivan Topic: Spinal Loading in Sports
9.50-10.05	Presenter: Mark Hancock Topic: Examination and sub-grouping towards better outcomes in low back pain treatment "Who will respond to what and how to identify them"
10.05-10.20	Presenter: Dr Mark Laslett Topic: Assessment of SIJ disorders: towards the development of a Clinical Prediction Rule
10.20-10.30	Keynote Speaker Sponsored by: Presenter: Dr Ben Kibler Topic: Scapular muscle detachment: diagnosis and surgical management of a previously under-reecognised condition
10.30–11.00	Morning Tea Bayside Grand Hall & Bayside Gallery
11.00-12.30	Plenary Session 4: Lower Limb and Knee Chair: Jenny McConnell Room: Bayside Terrace
11.00-11.25	Speaker: Dr Chris Powers Topic: Proximal contributions to anterior knee pain
11.25-11.50	Speaker: Dr Kay Crossley Topic: Anterior knee pain: local contributions VM/VL timing, taping
11.50-12.15	Speaker: Craig Payne Topic: How foot orthoses work and how to use that information to prescribe them
12.15-12.30	Format: Directed discussion and Q & A Moderator: Jenny McConnell
12.30–1.30	Lunch Bayside Grand Hall & Bayside Gallery
1.30-3.00	Plenary Session 5: Muscle science into practice Chair: Peter Blanch Room: Bayside Terrace
1.30-1.55	Keynote Speaker Sponsored by: Presenter: Dr Ben Kibler Topic: Natural history of GIRD and scapular position. Clinical observation of scapular position and motion, relation to biomechanically determined scapular position
1.55-2.15	Presenter: Dr Helene Langevin Topic: Stretching effect subcutaneous fascia: in vivo and in vitro research, an alternative explanation for the therapeutic effects of muscle stretch
2.15-2.30	Presenter: Professor David Allen Topic: Eccentric muscle contractions and subsequent hypertrophy intracellular ionic and cytoskeletal protein changes
2.30-2.45	Presenter: Dr. Rob Herbert Topic: A pragmatic randomized trial of stretching before and after physical activity to prevent injury and soreness
2.45-3.00	Presenter: Peter Blanch Topic: Stretching: Research findings into the real world
3.00-3.30	Afternoon Tea Bayside Grand Hall & Bayside Gallery
3.30-5.30	Concurrent Session 3: Shoulder EMG Room: Bayside Terrace Chair: Michael Moran
3.30-3.45	Presenter: Duangjai Wattanaprakornkul Topic: Shoulder muscle activation patterns during flexion-extension exercises
3.45-4.00	Presenter: Craig Boettcher Topic: Do manual muscle tests (maximal isometric contractions) isolate shoulder muscle activity?
4.00-4.15	Presenter: Karen Ginn Topic: Are rotator cuff muscles functioning to stabilize the shoulder joint during isometric flexion, extension and rotation contractions?
4.15-4.45	Presenter: Dr. Roger Adams Topic: Motor Learning after Motor Learning
4.45-5.00	Presenter: Margot Wilkes Topic: The effect of whole body vibration on the anterolateral abdominal muscles
5.00-5.15	Presenter: Joao Paulo Caneiro Topic: Assessing the efficacy of a specific physiotherapy intervention for the prevention of low back pain in female adolescent rowers
5.15-5.30	Presenter: Natalie Collins Topic: New evidence for physical therapies for anterior knee pain: a systematic review and meta-analysis
3.30-4.15	Concurrent Session 4: Titleholder's Session Room: Bayside 204B Chair: Leslie Nicholson Presenter: Dr Craig Payne Topic: Functional presecription of foot orthoses for lower limb disorders

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SPA Title Members Session

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