Hip Symposium, Liverpool

On Thursday 11th March 2010 the First International Meeting on the Management of the Hip in Cerebral Palsy was held at St George’s Hall in Liverpool. 

This was a very full and exciting day with speakers from UK, Sweden, Australia and the USA.  The International title was certainly deserved.

The day was a stimulating mix of lectures and debates all around the topic of Hips in Children with Cerebral Palsy.  For me, the biggest single thing I came away with was that in Sweden, where every child with Cerebral Palsy is monitored on an annual basis with information feeding into a national database, they have undertaken virtually no reconstructive hip surgery since the 1970s.  This seemed to be in stark contrast to other countries where hip surgery is still needed.  Why is this?  The regular monitoring of children and dissemination of information leads to better management of early hip problems.  A similar system in Victoria, Australia is giving similarly encouraging results.  I would hold up my hand to say, “Please can we do this in the UK.”  It means that children’s details are held on a national database but I believe that is less intrusive than reconstructive surgery and I hope that time will give the UK a similar system and offer less major surgery to our children in line with the spectacular results seen in Sweden and Australia.

EACD - Brussels

On a bright May day, Catherine and Johann set off on Eurostar to Belgium.  The  destination, the 22nd Annual Meeting of the European Academy of Childhood Disability in Brussels. 

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