United Spinal Association and the Northern New Jersey Spinal Cord Injury System (NNJSCIS) are teaming up to present a consumer-oriented medical education conference entitled, Life After Spinal Cord Injury: A Dialogue About Maintaining Health.
This day-long event will be held at the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation in West Orange, New Jersey on June 17, 2005. The event is designed as a consumer education conference that will address key medical issues affecting people with spinal cord injury and disease (SCI/D). These conferences will be directed towards people with SCI/D, their families and friends, and interested professionals.
The conference builds on the “brown bag” dissemination series that has been successfully hosted by United Spinal Association and the networking conference series established by the NNJSCIS. The conference establishes United Spinal’s first direct partnership with the NNJSCIS. The conference is denoted by the “Life After Spinal Cord Injury” label, but this conference will take on a different tone than the highly successful “networking” conference Life After Spinal Cord Injury: Love, Work, & Play, that was first hosted by the NNJSCIS in October 2003 at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, New Jersey.
Rather than encompass all areas of life following SCI, the conference will target two key medical issues that affect persons with SCI/D: pressure ulcers and wheelchair seating. The goal is to foster an open dialogue between those in attendance and the medical professionals leading the presentations, with substantial time allotted for questions and answers. Workshops will be available in the afternoon to allow attendees to see the latest in both manual and power wheelchairs. The conference will feature a lunch-time keynote lecture by Dr. Steven Kirshblum, director of SCI Services and Associate Medical Director of the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation. Dr. Kirshblum, one of the leading authorities in SCI/D, will be discussing the latest advances in SCI/D research and current clinical trials.
The June 2005 conference is a joint partnership between United Spinal, Kessler Medical Rehabilitation Research and Education Corporation (KMRREC), and the NNJSCIS. The NNJSCIS was established as a model system of SCI care in 1990 by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR). This project is a cooperative effort of KMRREC, the Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation, and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-New Jersey Medical School. The NNJSCIS provides a comprehensive continuum of state-of-the-art care for persons with SCI and their significant others from the time of injury through long-term follow-up in the community. The conference is also sponsored by the Henry H. Kessler Foundation.
In Spring 2006, the Life After Spinal Cord Injury conference series will continue, in the expanded format and will feature a wide variety of topics and resource booths staffed by outside vendors. The Spring 2006 conference will be held at a larger venue (e.g., similar to the 2003 conference that was set in the New Jersey Performing Arts Center). Plans are to provide Life After Spinal Cord Injury educational activities on a yearly basis, though they will likely alternate between the expanded and more focused formats.
Trevor Dyson-Hudson, MD, is a research scientist and director of Consumer Dissemination at Kessler Medical Rehabilitation Research & Education Corporation (KMRREC) in West Orange, New Jersey.
