This year's Combined Sections Meeting proved to be yet another outstanding year for women's health physical therapy research. Our poster and platform presentations addressed issues from the pelvic floor to the glass ceiling. Among the platforms we had 4 presentations on the pelvic floor. The first was presented by our 2009 Research Scholar awardee, Dr. Elizabeth Shelly and addressed confidence of pelvic floor examination skills by Physical Therapists. The other presentations about the pelvic floor concerned the measurement of pelvic floor muscle coordination, the effect of pelvic floor strengthening and dietary recommendations to reduce incontinence among elite collegiate athletes, and a comparison of two methods of pelvic floor muscle electrical stimulation to treat stress incontinence. We next had a presentation on the use of manual therapy techniques in the management of chronic pelvic pain. Two other presentations concerned abdominal musculature - the first concerned a case study illustrating the use of physical therapy to improve diastasis recti and quality of life and the second examined abdominal muscle performance during the early postpartum phase using cross-sectional data. Moving to the glass ceiling, we had a compelling presentation on a social psychological analysis of women in leadership.

We had a record 18 poster presentations this year which used a variety of topics, theoretical frameworks, and methods. All of these presentations illustrate the fact that women's health physical therapy has expanded beyond urinary incontinence. We had presentations on pain measurement, abdominal muscle strength after natural tissue breast reconstruction, clinical decision making & osteoporosis, menopause & quality of life, clinical outcomes of osteoporosis, diastasis recti measurement & methods using a cadaver sample, a case report on prostatitis & chronic pelvic pain, myofascial release in rheumatoid arthritis, effects of mammoplasty on the lumbar spine, postural sway and menstrual cycle changes in young women, urinary and fecal incontinence, and the use of MRI imaging of women with painful bladder syndrome.

All of the poster and platform presentations represented excellence and it was difficult to reach a decision for our Annual Awards for Outstanding Poster & Platform Presentations. Our 2009 awardees are:

Poster Presentation: Quality of life, abdominal muscle strength and endurance of women following breast reconstruction. Gill CH, Dial TA, Dalton J.

Platform Presentation: Randomized multicenter pilot trial shows benefit of manual therapies in treatment of urologic chronic pelvic pain. SA Badillo, CE Neville, R Kotarinos, C Fortman, L Fraser, A Cosby, B O'Dougherty, A Sanfield, L Odabachian, R Halle-Podell.

Our sessions this year truly reflects the advances we have made in women's health physical therapy and the expansion of our practice beyond urinary incontinence. This is such an exciting time in our field with the Section on Women's Health making the historic step a reality and awarding of a certification of achievement in critical practice areas. At the same time we see the evidence growing in these same areas which was well-represented by our poster and platform presentations. Elevation of women's health physical therapy necessitates great infrastructural support. Many thanks go to Pamela Downey, PT, DPT who did all the "behind the scenes" work and chaired the review committee. Dr. Downey received all the abstracts, provided all resources necessary to the reviewers to select the studies for presentation, corresponded with each presenter, and ensured a smooth check in process by communicating with each presenter on the requirements of presentation. I wish to also thank our CSM abstract review team for their thoughtful reviews and for their willingness to make the difficult selection choices. Thanks also go to Drs. Nancy Rich and Diane Borello-France, and MJ Strauhal for their support in the review of the platform and poster presentations for our annual awards.

I strongly encourage all the presenters to submit their work for publication to the Journal of Women's Health Physical Therapy. Please do not hesitate to contact either Dr. Nancy Rich (Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Women's Health Physical Therapy) or Dr. Ann Marie Flores (Director of Research, SOWH) to discuss manuscript preparation and submission. It is not too early to begin considering a presentation of your own at CSM 2010 in San Diego, CA.