FES Sport - A new sport and health frontier

A meeting to be held in Glasgow June 19th &20th 2009. Advances in Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) are now allowing spinal cord injured individuals to routinely exercise using their own muscles, when previously their injury would have served as a permanent barrier to this.  The technology is improving but there is much still to do.

Combining FES with a motorised indoor or outdoor cycle (FES Cycling) or a rowing machine (FES Rowing) has been proven to open up new possibilities for spinal cord injured persons to grasp better health, develop fitness and find athletic challenge.  Much more can follow and maybe you can help. Here is a video of the 2006 event to whet your appetite.

Join us to ride the next wave
This event, to be held in Glasgow for the first time, brings together

•   Persons with spinal cord injuries who can make direct use of this technology – and who really want to know what the fuss is all about
•   Persons from around the world who are already using FES activated sports technologies and now want to share what they have learned - taking things to the next level.
•    Developers and researchers who are shaping present and future technologies in FES Sport
•   Sports therapists and their knowledge of athletic performance; helping to optimise training for individuals challenged by physical disability

Learn, Share, Try, Enjoy
This technology is not therapy – it’s better than that.  If you have a spinal cord injury it is very good for you even if it can’t repair the damage to the cord.  Building better cardiovascular fitness, bone strength and general health opens up some new possibilities and we would like to see these expand and broaden for many more people to benefit.

•    Participants will hear about the latest FES Sport developments and try some of these out for themselves
•    Learn about leading edge research – what is FES? What is the state of the art?
•    Speak to experienced users of FES Rowing and Cycling systems
•    Discuss how to make these technologies “main-stream”
•    Explore competition in friendly FES sport enabled games.

Here are some images from the 2006 event

The meeting will be held in collaboration with

•    Hasomed GmbH, Mageburg, Germany
•    The Queen Elizabeth, National Spinal Injuries Unit for Scotland
•    Anatomical Concepts (UK) Ltd, Clydebank Scotland
•    Centre for Rehabilitation Engineering, University of Glasgow and the
•    Scottish Centre for Innovation in Spinal Cord Injury, Glsagow

 Register your interest via the online form at www.fessport.com FROM 1st OCTOBER 2008