Leading world experts to speak at the Australasian rehabilitation conference in Queenstown in July

Some of the world’s leading experts will offer new trends and treatment ideas at the Australasian rehabilitation conference in Queenstown later this year.

About 250 New Zealand and Australian specialists in the rehabilitation field will discuss the major issues facing treatment during the July 21-25 conference.

Dr Gale Whiteneck of Colorado will touch on spinal cord injury, traumatic brain injury and mortality after brain injury in his address. Whiteneck’s investigations focus on functional assessment, handicap/participation measurement and long-term outcomes.

Conference organiser Duncan Reid of Auckland said Brisbane’s Michele Sterling, a world leading researcher in physiotherapy management, will talk about whiplash. Sterling investigated whiplash associated disorders and neck pain and has published works on spine pain.

``Harry McNaughton is another key speaker who is also a researcher in the management of stroke and one of the authors of the ACC guidelines into the management of traumatic brain injury which is a large cost item for ACC,’’ Reid said.

The conference will also include the 17th annual scientific meeting of the Australasian Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine.

Figures show ACC spent $438.9 million in 2007-08 on social rehabilitation. In the same period,
119 people were killed, and more than 37,700 people were injured on the job severely enough to be off work for more than a week. A total of 285,400 people suffered some kind of injury at work out of a total workforce of 2.26 million people.

ACC dealt with 14,768 claims for road crash injuries in 2007-08. The total cost of road crash injuries for that year was $336.1 million. The total social cost of road crashes is estimated to be $3.5 billion a year to health services and the community.