Baylor DPT Faculty Present at 2024 International Federation of Manual and Musculoskeletal Physical Therapists Incorporated (IFOMPT) Conference

The International Federation of Manual and Musculoskeletal Physical Therapists Incorporated (IFOMPT) holds its prestigious international conference every four years. But, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the last in-person event was held in 2016—eight years ago—quite an unexpected, extended hiatus.

With excitement, July 2024 welcomed the long-awaited return of the IFOMPT conference, as more than 1,600 physical therapists from 57 countries convened in Basel, Switzerland. Among those in attendance were two faculty members representing the Department of Physical Therapy in Baylor University's Robbins College of Health and Human Sciences.

"Being at an international conference like this really opened my eyes to the various health-care models across the world," Casey Unverzagt, DPT, DSc, Clinical Associate Professor and Academic Coordinator for the Baylor Scott & White – Baylor University Orthopedic Residency, said. "The role of the physical therapist (physiotherapist) is somewhat unique in each system. This realization helped me to learn about the different settings and systems the conference attendees were in and thus convey how our findings could be applied to their unique environments."

Unverzagt presented a poster, "Systematic Review of Systematic Reviews for Effectiveness of Exercise-Based Interventions for Neck Pain & Disability," which reviewed how exercise can best be used to address neck pain. 

"Questions still remain whether the exercises need to be specific to the neck region and individual impairments or whether more general regional or entire-body exercises have similar impacts," Unverzagt said. "Our systematic review revealed that both specific and non-specific exercise demonstrated a strong correlation with decreased pain and disability among individuals with neck pain."

Louie Puentedura, PT, DPT, PhD, Clinical Professor, co-presented a two-hour session discussing the safe management of individuals with neck pain and headache, presented a poster titled "Harmonizing Perspectives: A Consensus-Based Methodology for Establishing a Manual Therapy Framework for Dominant Pain Mechanisms," and participated in a student session called "Hunt the Pain." Puentedura's co-presentation with international physical therapists demonstrated the importance of ruling out vascular causes of headaches and neck pain.

"It covered typical presentations and management with a focus on safety when using manual therapy techniques," Puentedura said. "Our presentation included a live demonstration of neck manipulation to show how it should be nothing like what many people see on YouTube!"

Interested in representing Baylor Physical Therapy at the next IFOMPT conference in 2028? Mark your calendar—June 1-3, 2028, in Vancouver, Canada!