The 19th ISPO World Congress was attended by 1,500 participants from 73 countries, ranging from low- to high-income nations. Countries with the highest number of participants included Mexico, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Canada. Overall, 40 percent of participants were from Latin America.

Approximately 300 speakers from around the world delivered an expanded four-day scientific program under the theme “The Art and the Science.” The program included five plenary lectures, 31 symposia, 18 basic and 8 advanced instructional courses, 41 free paper sessions, 64 scientific posters, seven lunchtime sessions, and 13 exhibitor workshops.

Presentation recordings available online
Recordings of all plenary lectures, opening and closing ceremonies, the presentation of the WHO Guidelines on the Provision of Wheelchairs, as well as a selection of free papers and posters, are available on the virtual platform ispolearn.org. Access is granted to congress participants and ISPO members.

Award winners announced
The Brian and Joyce Blatchford Team Prize for Innovation was established by the Blatchford family and recognizes a team with an outstanding track record of innovative achievements in prosthetics and/or orthotics. Joan Sanders and her team from the University of Washington in Seattle received this year’s award for their dedicated work on innovative socket interface technologies.

The Sepp Heim Award was established by ISPO in 2019 in honor of Sepp Heim’s significant contribution to ISPO and recognizes institutions or individuals who have made a substantial contribution to the development and/or provision of appropriate mobility assistive devices in low-resource settings. This year’s award was presented to Sandra Sexton from the United Kingdom. She donated her prize to the organization African Vision Malawi.

Best paper and poster awards were presented in the following categories:

• Clinical Advancement: “The effect of orthotic devices on balance in children with cerebral palsy: solid AFO versus a combination of ankle-foot orthoses,” by Kristie Bjornson, Stefania Fatone, Michael Orendurff, Chuan Zhou, and Garth Shippin.
• Technological Advancement: “Specification of a pediatric knee prosthesis: an inverse dynamics approach using a novel OpenSim model of a child with limb loss,” by Caitlin E. Edgar, Richard K. Jones, and Anthony M. J. Bull.
• Psychosocial / Socio-economic Advancement: “Prosthesis users’ perceptions of everyday life – a phenomenographic study,” by Nerrolin Ramstrand, Anders Stener, and Lina Palmer.
• Educational Advancement: “A new approach to transitioning orthotic and prosthetic education programs to client-centered learning,” by Christopher Hovorka.
• Best Poster: “Time to prosthetic fitting following major lower limb amputations – national data from Sweden,” by Stefan Sanfridsson.