Incoming President's Address

Abstract

I thank you for the confidence that you have shown in electing me your President. It is a great honour to be following in the footsteps of Knud Jansen, our Founding President, and the other Presidents who came after him, all whom have made a significant contribution to the Society. I have had the good fortune to have worked for ISPO in one capacity or another under all the Presidents. I hope that some of their dedication, wisdom and good humour has passed on to me to allow me to carry out this task in a positive and productive manner. The Society has achieved a great deal since its foundation in 1970. It has created a truly international and multidisciplinary forum of all those professionals working in the fields of prosthetics, orthotics and rehabilitation engineering through its Congresses, conferences, and regional and national meetings. It has run workshops and seminars on such topics as the deformed foot, CAD CAM in prosthetics and orthotics and trans-femoral sockets. It has organised consensus conferences on amputation surgery, the orthotic treatment of the lower limb in cerebral palsy, appropriate prosthetic technology for low-income countries and, most recently, the treatment of poliomyelitis. It has disseminated information worldwide through its publications, Prosthetics and Orthotics International and the reports of its workshops and consensus conferences, and also by offering courses in different regions of the world. As a result of a series of meetings the Society has laid down standards for education and training of prosthetics and orthotics personnel in low-income countries. These standards have now been accepted by all the major international and national agencies working in this important area. This work has culminated in the publication of a package for education and training of the Category I1 professional that provides detailed information to those who wish to establish a course in low-income countries. We could continue to look back at other activities and congratulate ourselves for all that the Society has achieved. However the truth of the matter is that we have only just scratched the surface and much remains to be done. The World Health Organisation has estimated that there is a need for 20,000 trained prosthetics and orthotics personnel to meet the needs in low-income countries. Altogether there are only about 2,000, a shortfall of 18,000. The overall needs in low-income countries are immense. They have few resources and many problems. It is our duty to ensure that all efforts that are made are part of a strategy to ensure the establishment of long-term prosthetics and orthotics and other rehabilitation services in these countries. It is necessary to examine the components and technologies used in these countries with regard to function and costs as well as the sustainability and effectiveness of the services established. Many low-income countries require aid as a direct result of present or past conflict. The Society must support, as far as it can, those National and International agencies that are providing prosthetics and orthotics services in these situations. In the industrial world the standards of education and training of prosthetists and orthotists are extremely varied, from university level in some countries to little or none in others. The challenge in this regard is to produce adequate numbers of well-educated prosthetics and orthotics personnel to an acceptable standard and it is the Society’s intention to pursue the implementation of its information package for the education and training of Category I professionals. There continues to be a great proliferation of components and techniques, many of which have reached the market place without any proper independent evaluation of their effectiveness, function or outcome. Much work needs to be done in this direction.