WELCOME TO THE 9TH EPUAP OPEN MEETING

The football fans have all now returned home from Berlin following the World Cup final and now it’s the turn of the pressure ulcer research and clinical community to arrive in their hundreds to Berlin for the 9th EPUAP Open Meeting!

It hardly seems like it is now nine years since the very first EPUAP open meeting held in Oxford back in 1997 but the organization has been very active and the years seem to fly past. Some of this activity will be reported in Berlin – the international initiative on shear force measurement and interpretation is a major undertaking for the EPUAP and this will be discussed during the Berlin conference. To whet your appetite this issue of the EPUAP Review contains a report of the most recent meeting of the shear force initiative held in San Antonio, Texas in late April 2006. Other EPUAP activities will also be reported – we have conducted a survey of current awareness and implementation of the EPUAP pressure ulcer and nutrition guideline across three countries (UK, Netherlands and Germany) and the results of this work will be presented here in Berlin.

The EPUAP scientific committee is pleased to report that annually we received around 100 abstracts, gererally of a very high standard. Each year the quality of abstracts submitted to the EPUAP Open Meeting grow stronger scientifically and this offers hope that pressure ulcer research is improving year-on-year offering eventual improvements in both the prevention and management of these all too common wounds.

I have also included a round-up of recent pressure ulcer publications in this issue of the Review – do you find these reference lists useful? Let me know whether they are helpful and whether you would like to see a specific pressure ulcer topic covered in a future issue. I can be contacted directly at
clarkm@whru.co.uk and would welcome your comments on reference lists and any aspect of the EPUAP Review.

Looking forward to welcoming you to Berlin and hope that the 9th EPUAP Open Meeting is as successful as the preceding conferences over the past nine years!

Dr Michael Clark
Editor