2007
FIRST INTERNATIONAL FASCIA RESEARCH CONGRESS
OCTOBER 4 - 5, 2007 | BOSTON, MA, USA
The First International Fascia Research Congress was held October 4-5, 2007 at The Conference Center, Harvard Medical School in Boston. It was the first international conference dedicated to fascia in all its forms and functions.
This conference was intended to be a catalyst. The emphasis and centerpiece was the presentation of the latest and best scientific fascia research for clinical professionals in whose specialties the human fasciae are central in both theory and practice. Many of the scientists attending had little experience with clinical practice and clinicians were often unfamiliar with each other‘s work. At this landmark event professionals from the separate domains of basic research and clinical practice had an unprecedented opportunity to learn from one another and gain insights to inform and enrich their respective areas of work and lead to new areas of scientific inquiry and improvements in applied methods.
The sold-out conference was attended by 650 persons from 28 countries, including 340 massage therapists and other bodyworkers, 100 physicians, 60 PhD scientists and graduate students, 50 physical therapists, 40 chiropractors, 35 acupuncturists, and 20 athletic and sports trainers. Of the 100 presentations at the conference 2/3 were by investigative teams which included BOTH physicians or scientists AND clinical practitioners. The conference was recorded and DVD replays have been presented at 35 locations worldwide.
Welcome Address at the First Fascia Research Congress, Boston, MA, 2007
by Dr. Tom Findley, MD, PhD
A reaction to the Fascia Research Congress from one of the principal speakers,
Serge Gracovetsky PhD, Emeritus Professor, Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
That conference was one of the most productive I have been involved with. I am not a clinician, but I knew that manual therapy was effective since I witnessed the benefits that my wife received from a chiropractic friend following a car accident. Why it worked was a mystery to me, and the absence of hard data in the literature (i.e. convincing blind studies with control group) did not help. Boston 2007 changed all that. On Thursday morning, the direct impact of stress at the cellular level, including the expression of DNA targeting the build up of muscle was coolly laid out in no uncertain terms. I was mesmerized by the movie of Dr. Guimberteau which instantly obsoleted all mathematical models of tissue biomechanics that I knew. That was the evidence I was looking for. The question is no longer whether manual therapy is an efficient alternate form of medicine. The data demonstrates that the therapy intervenes at a very primitive and fundamental level in our systems. It has to have a major effect. That was a total surprise to me.
In truth, I realized since the early 1990‘s that the classical representations of the musculo skeletal system were incorrect. Confronted with many discrepancies in the calculations, I sensed that something fundamental was missing. I tried but could not reconcile the logic of Tensegrity with serious spine biomechanics. Boston 2007 provided the pathway. It suddenly made so much sense.
— Serge Gracovetsky