Friday, December 12, 2014

Nordic Therapist Meeting on Tetraplegia Upper Limb Surgery


Therapists from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden met in Gothenburg in the end of November. During three intensive days we discussed, learned from each other and tried to reach consensus upon rehabilitation after reconstructive upper limb surgery. We had detailed discussions about outcome measures and rehabilitation strategies for triceps reconstructions, grip reconstructions and surgery for spasticity-induced deformities. Each country described the rehabilitation strategies today and Jette Skyggebjerg from Denmark gave us a short report from the recently published article about long term follow up on the surgeries performed in Denmark. We also visited a training session with a patient two days after grip reconstruction.  At the end of this brief summit, a first version of Nordic guidelines for rehabilitation after tetraplegia upper limb surgery was agreed upon.  Each unit will discuss this initial version and further work will be done during the next NORTH-meeting that will be hosted in Denmark in September 2015. The meeting did however not only include hard work. During the evenings we had social activities including dining, singing, boat trip and sauna including bath in the 7°C “warm” ocean! We got to know each other more and are looking forward to future cooperation between our countries.
Finally, we would like to extend a special thanks to Professor Leiv Hove in Bergen, Norway and the Nordic Council for financial support that made this meeting both memorable and fruitful.

Johanna Wangdell, Anna-Karin Gustavsson & Lina Bunketorp- Käll

Participants shown in picture: Island: Sigþrúður (Sissu) Loftsdóttir, Sunna Kristinsdóttir. Finland: Leena Mäntylä, Pia Nahi. Denmark: Susanne Berner Nielsen, Jette Skyggebjerg. Norway: Anett Myhre Kallevik, Elin Widegren Norum. Sweden: Johanna Wangdell, Anna-Karin Gustavsson, Lina Bunketorp- Käll