The 17th International Society of Prosthetics Congress was held in Kobe, Japan in October 2019. I attended and gave two presentations related to the work taking place in Uganda and Jordan. The theme was “Basics to Bionics”. My favourite sessions were related to outcome measures, developing countries, psychosocial issues, quality of life, prosthetics upper limb and assistive technologies against ageing society (although this theme would have been better if it was assistive technology for older age or elderly). I was slightly disappointed to see that more than 60% of efforts are still directed to highly technological prosthetics, which remain inaccessible to all developing countries.
I presented preliminary results of our pilot studies in Uganda and Jordan that have two different aims as explained in a past post by Catherine Holloway.
You can see the presentations in the website of the Global Disability Innovation Hub, in a blog post of a colleague that also attended the congress but for presenting work related to the AT2030 project of the GDI Hub.
After the congress I stayed a few days in Japan and attended the 2nd International Medical & Elderly Care Expo and the Internet of Things section of the 10th Japan IT Week in Tokyo. Not speaking Japanese was admittedly difficult, but it was important to see the state of medical devices and IoT in the Asian region. Notable sections in the expos were: care robots, rehabilitation, elderly care, multiple companies dedicated to health and nursing related apps, wearable sensing and a good number of companies with AI based products.
The 18th ISPO congress will take place in Guadalajara, Mexico in April 2021 and it will have the theme “The art and the science”. Since Mexico is proudly my birth country, I hope that the F4P has deliverables in 2021, which it will be a joy present at the congress, then network with Mexican prosthetics experts and maybe make a short visit to Puerto Vallarta. See you there?
