Meeting Report
The 25th International Meeting of Physical Therapy Science in Korea
The 25th International Meeting of Physical Therapy Science was held on July 13-15, 2018 at Konyang University in Daejeon City, South Korea.
Daejeon City is located in the middle of Korea. It is a key hub of traffic, and rapidly developing and growing cities. In addition to the Daejeon International Exposition, Daejeon is also known as a science and technology city, since it is the location of more than 100 government and private laboratories, and is a major national administrative center.
Konyang University has two campuses, and the Meeting was held at Daejeon Medical Campus. Daejeon Medical Campus is composed of 4 medical colleges with schools of medicine and a hospital.
On July 13, a welcome reception was held at a restaurant and, surrounded by Korean food, deepened the friendship between physical therapists from Japan, Korea, and China.
The academic conference was held on the Daejeon Medical Campus of Konyang University on July 14. The chairman of the conference was Professor DongKwon Seo, the head of the Department of Physical Therapy of Konyang University. The International Meeting of Physical Therapy Science was held for the second time at Konyang University.
The academic conference on July 14 was launched with greetings from Professor DongKwon Seo, Hitoshi Maruyama, president of Society of Physical Therapy Science, and a congratulatory message from DaeLim Yang, President of Daejeon City Regional Association of the Korean Physical Therapy Association. The 80 attending participants' from Korea, Japan and China included physical therapists, professors of university, clinicians, graduate students, and undergraduates.
There were 2 special lectures, 3 oral presentations and 23 poster presentations. In the special lecture, Professor JeongAh Kim gave a lecture entitled “"Heeler concept" Physical therapy for obstetrics” regarding obstetric physical therapy in Korea.
A special lecture was also given by Dr. Masaharu Morita of the International University of Health and Welfare, Japan, entitled “A Fatigue Evaluation of a Local Muscle Using the Near Infrared Spectroscopy”.
After the two special lectures, three oral presentations were made before the end of the morning program. In the afternoon poster presentations were held separately in three sessions and discussions were active. After the poster sessions, the participants visited the Department of Physical Therapy and the Hospital of Konyang University. In the evening, there was a dinner party to deepen participants' friendship.
On July 15, the 3rd day of the meeting, there was an excursion with an itinerary deepening understanding of Korean history at Buyeo. Participants accompanying the excursion further deepened friendships.
The International Meeting of Physical Therapy Science has been held in Korea once every year since 2013, this year being the sixth occasion. It will be an event for sustainable academic exchange between physical therapists from various countries including Korea, Japan and China in the future.
HeonSoo Han
Department of Physical Therapy
International University of Health and Welfare, Japan
