by Mubasher Qamar and Anna Sauerbier
The annual international congress of Parkinson’s disease and Movement Disorders Society (IPMDS) took place in, Vancouver, Canada, on June 4-8th 2017. This four-day congress encompassed several key lectures from basic neuroscience to new clinical advances in Parkinson’s disease (PD) and movement disorders. Cutting edge science was presented with a total of 1,576 abstracts, 131 Late-breaking abstracts, and 21 MDS Study Group abstracts.
This year saw a total of 4,300 participants from 89 counties, making it a truly global event of the year. Some of the most relevant topics were the advances in biomarkers whereby several posters exploring biomarkers in PD and movement disorders took much of the blue-ribbon highlights at the end of the congress. Additionally, IPMDS introduced new aspects to their annual congress with emphasis on young trainees.
Several events throughout the congress worked to create a global community of young trainees to allow for collaboration and guidance in progressing in the world of neurology, especially movement disorders. The trainees had a welcome reception to network followed by a series of tantalising sessions to inform and brainstorm on how young neurologists can get involved in the IPMDS society.
Another new substantial introduction to the congress was the IPMDS Pavilion, where a series of interactive sessions took place allowing discussion of key topics with key opinion leaders in the field. An example of such was the session on Study Groups within the IPMDS. This session informed about the concept and availability of different study groups and encouraged interesting discussions about the aim and how to get involved in study groups.
This was certainly a successful congress in many ways with an impressive network of physicians coming together to learn and share their knowledge.