Two years ago, Tash Masud ran the first Falls and Postural Stability conference in Nottingham. Little did he know at the time, what a successful venture it would be.

The 3rd National Falls and Postural Stability Conference was held in Kensington Town Hall, London in September 2002. The day was an overwhelming success with over 400 delegates and a series of high quality presentations delivered by a range of professionals from various disciplines.

Professor Val Pomeroy opened the day with a fascinating talk on rehabilitative techniques and technologies and this was followed by a masterly presentation by our very own Dr Peter Overstall on the subject of falls and Parkinson’s Disease. Later in the morning, the conference moved on to a new topic and Prof Chris Todd gave a thought provoking insight into the psychological aspects of falls, discussing the need to consider patterns of behaviour when designing falls prevention strategies. This area is clearly in its infancy and a lot more good work is likely to be forthcoming in the next few years.

Another first was the presentation by a husband and wife team - Bill and Leslie Gillespie - both of whom are involved in the Cochrane review of Falls Prevention Strategies. Marital harmony prevailed and we all got an inside view of the methodologies of the Cochrane review process.

Posters
Coffee and lunch gave delegates the opportunity to peruse the posters submitted. With each year passing, the number of posters submitted has increased and there was a lot of good work presented, giving people the opportunity to share research and service development successes (perhaps we should also be more open about sharing failures). The prize for the best poster presentation went to Dr Fade from Southampton General Hospital, for her study entitled: ‘Study to assess the validity of a modified ‘stratify’ score to predict fallers in a residential setting’.

The selected platform presentations were of outstanding quality this year and this was acknowledged in the feedback from delegates. The prize for the best platform presentation was presented jointly to Dr V S Stel, from EMGO Institute, the Netherlands, for her talk: ‘Treatable risk factors for falls in the elderly: from risk profile to intervention strategy’ and Dr Jugdeep Dhesi, King’s College Hospital, London for her study: ‘Vitamin D supplementation improves neuromuscular function in older
people who fall’.

Fracture Prevention
In keeping with the overall aim of the conference and the Special Interest Group, the latter half of the afternoon moved away from falls prevention and focussed on bone health and fracture prevention. Dr Terrence O’Neill gave a splendid review of the epidemiology of osteoporosis and fractures and this was followed by Dr Richard Keen who delivered an excellent synopsis of treatment strategies for osteoporosis and fracture prevention.

With just 5 minutes to spare, Prof Angus Wallace strolled into the conference centre - much to the relief of the session’s chairs - Finbarr Martin and Roger Francis. In his truly inimitable style, Angus closed the afternoon with a talk on the manage-ment of hip fracture, which was deliberately contentious and at times quite political. His take- home message was that there are orthopaedic surgeons who care about the management of patients with a fractured neck of femur.

The afternoon drew to a close and the delegates dutifully completed the evaluation forms before heading back home to all four corners of the UK and Europe - with some stopping off to take advantage of local retail opportunities and hostelries (myself included).

Quo Vadis
With the increasing popularity of the conference, there is little doubt we will continue to run this forum annually. The challenge will be to ensure that we continue to attract a multidisciplinary audience and explore new areas not previously presented. Topics yet to be covered in any depth include falls in instituional care, cognitive impairment and falls, cardiovascular investigation of falls and the more practical issues of how to set up a falls service, and the role of hip protectors in clinical practice.

Thanks to all those who continue to support this conference and we look forward to seeing you again next year along with new faces who have been bitten by the “falling” bug!

Jacqueline C T Close
Secretary – Falls and Bone Health SIG